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SAM LAWSON 




?/SS ,Ci 

SAM LAWSON’S 


OLDTOWN 

Fireside Stories 




X 

by 

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 


Blustrations. 



BOSTON : 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

(LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 
1872. 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 
By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 


Boston : 

Stereotyped and Printed by Rand , Avery, < 5 r* Co. 


ILLU STRATIOFS. 

[The Drawings by F. O. C. Darley, Augustus Hoppin, and John J. Harley.l 


PAGE 


Sam Lawson ........ Frontispiece. 


yy 


“Do, DO, TELL US A STORY” 

“ Old Cack knew him too ” 

“IIULDY CAME BEHIND, JIST CnOKIN’ WITH LAUGH 

“ I’ve thrown the pig in the well ” . 

“And gin him a regular bear’s hug” 

“ They dug down about five feet ” . j 
“ Great gold eagles and guineas flew round the 

KITCHEN ” 

“ She stood there, lookin’ right at Cinthy ” . 

“He was took with the shine o’ these shoe-buckles’ 
“He bethought him of old Hump’s gun” 

“Wal, I’m the Devil, sez nE 


yy 


3 

20 

65 

70 

99 

119 

138 

149 

174 

187 

199 


CONTENTS, 


The GnosT in the Mill 9 

The Sullivan Looking-Glass ..... 25 

The Minister’s Housekeeper 53 

The Widow’s Bandbox . 79 

Captain Kidd’s Monet 103 

“Mis’ Elderkin’s Pitcher” . 122 

The Ghost in the Cap’n Brown House .... 139 

Colonel Eph’s Shoe-Buckles 160 

The Bull-Fight 177 

How to Fight the Devil 

Laughin’ in Meetin’ 200 


Oldtown Fireside Stories. 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 



OME, Sam, tell us a 
story,” said I, as Har- 
ry and I crept to his 
knees, in the glow 
of the bright evening 
firelight ; while Aunt 
Lois was busily rat- 
tling the tea-things, 
and grandmamma, at 
the other end of the fireplace, was quietly setting the 
heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking. 

In those days we had no magazines and daily pa- 
pers, each reeling off a serial story. Once a week, 


2 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ The Columbian Sentinel ” came from Boston with 
its slender stock of news and editorial ; but all the 
multiform devices — pictorial, narrative, and poetical 
— which keep the mind of the present generation 
ablaze with excitement, had not then even an exist- 
ence. There was no theatre, no opera ; there were 
in Oldtown no parties or balls, except, perhaps, the 
annual election, or Thanksgiving festival ; and when 
winter came, and the sun went down at half-past 
four o’clock, and left the long, dark hours of evening 
to be provided for, the necessity of amusement be- 
came urgent. Hence, in those days, chimney-corner 
story-telling became ail art and an accomplishment. 
Society then was full of traditions and narratives 
which had all the uncertain glow and shifting mys- 
tery of the firelit hearth upon them. They were 
told to sympathetic audiences, by the rising and fall- 
ing light of the solemn embers, with the hearth- 
crickets filling up every pause. Then the aged told 
their stories to the young, — tales of early life ; tales 
of war and adventure, of forest-days, of Indian cap- 
tivities and escapes, of bears and wild-cats and pan- 
thers, of rattlesnakes, of witches and wizards, and 









* 



“ Do , do, tell ns a story.'” — Page 3. 












THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


3 


strange and wonderful dreams and appearances and 
providences. 

In those days of early Massachusetts, faith and 
credence were in the very air. Two-thirds of New 
England was then dark, unbroken forests, through 
whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind 
groaned and shrieked and howled ^ifhr^vw-djaQises 
and unaccountable clamors. Along the iron-bound 
shore, the stormful Atlantic raved and thundered, 
and dashed its moaning waters, as if to deaden 
and deafen any voice that might tell of the settled 
life of the old civilized world, and shut us forever 
into the wilderness. A good story-teller, in those 
days, was always sure of a warm seat at the hearth- 
stone, and the delighted homage of children ; and 
in all Oldtown there was no better story-teller than 
Sam Lawson. 

“Do, do, tell us a story,” said Harry, pressing 
upon him, and opening very wide blue eyes, in which 
undoubting faith shone as in a mirror ; “ and let it 
be something strange, and different from common.” 

“ Wal, I know lots o’ strange things,” said Sam, 
looking mysteriously into the fire. “Why, I know 


4 


OTDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


things, that ef I should tell, — why, people might say 
they wa’n’t so ; but then they is so for all that.” 

“ Oh, do, tell us ! ” 

“ Why, I should scare ye to death, mebbe,” said 
Sam doubtingly. 

“ Oh, pooh ! no, you wouldn’t,” we both burst out 
at once. 

But Sam was possessed by a reticent spirit, and 
loved dearly to be wooed and importuned ; and so 
he only took up the great kitchen-tongs, and smote 
on the hickory forestiek, when it flew apart in the 
middle, and scattered a shower of clear bright coals 
all over the hearth. 

“ Mercy on us, Sam Lawson ! ” said Aunt Lois in 
an indignant voice, spinning round from her dish- 
washing. 

“Don’t you worry a grain, Miss Lois,” said Sam 
composedly. “ I see that are stick was e’en a’most 
in two, and I thought I’d jest settle it. I’ll sweep 
up the coals now,” he added, vigorously applying 
a turkey-wing to the purpose, as he knelt on the 
hearth, his spare, lean figure glowing in the blaze 
of the firelight, and getting quite flashed with ex- 
ertion. 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


5 


“ There, now ! ” he said, when he had brushed over 
and under and between the fire-irons, and pursued 
the retreating ashes so far into the red, fiery citadel, 
that his finger-ends were burning and tingling, “ that 
are’s done now as well as Hepsy herself could ’a’ 
done it. I allers sweeps up the haarth : I think it’s 
part o’ the man’s bisness when he makes the fire. 
But Hepsy ’s so used to seein’ me a-doin’ on’t, that 
she don’t see no kind o’ merit in’t. It’s just as 
Parson Lothrop said in his sermon, — folks allers 
overlook their common marcies” — 

“ But come, Sam, that story,” said Harry and I 
coaxingly, pressing upon him, and pulling him down 
into his seat in the corner. 

“ Lordy massy, these ’ere young uns ! ” said Sam. 
“ There’s never no contentin’ on ’em : ye tell ’em 
one story, and they jest swallows it as a dog does 
a gob o’ meat; and they’re all ready for another. 
What do ye want to hear now ? ” 

Now, the fact was, that Sam’s stories had been told 
us so often, that they were all arranged and ticketed 
in our minds. We knew every word in them, and 
could set him right if he varied a hair from the 


i* 


6 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


usual track ; and still the interest in them was un- 
abated. Still we shivered, and clung to his knee, at 
the mysterious parts, and felt gentle, cold chills run 
down our spines at appropriate places. We were 
always in the most receptive and sympathetic con- 
dition. To-night, in particular, was one of those 
thundering stormy ones, when the winds appeared 
to be holding a perfect mad carnival over my grand- 
father’s house. They yelled and squealed round the 
corners ; they collected in troops, and came tum- 
bling and roaring down chimney ; they shook and 
rattled the buttery-door and the sinkroom-door 
and the cellar-door and the chamber-door, with a 
constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at 
every door were a cold, discontented spirit, tired of 
the chill outside, and longing for the warmth and 
comfort within. 

“ Wal, boys,” said Sam confidentially, “ what’ll 
ye have ? ” 

“Tell us ‘Come down, come down ! ’ ” we both 
shouted with one voice. This was, in our mind, an 
“ A No. 1 ” among Sam’s stories. 

“Ye mus’n’t be frightened now,” said Sam pa- 
ternally. 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


7 


“ Oh, no ! we ar’n’t frightened ever” said we both 
in one breath. 

“ Not when ye go down the cellar arter cider ? ” 
said Sam with severe scrutiny. “ Ef ye should be 
do'wn cellar, and the candle should go out, now ? ” 

“ I ain’t,” said I : “I ain’t afraid of any thing. I 
never knew what it was to be afraid in my life.” 

“ Wal, then,” said Sam, “ I’ll tell ye. This ’ere’s 
what Cap’n Eb Sawin told me when I was a boy 
about your bigness, I reckon. 

“ Cap’n Eb Sawin was a most respectable man. 
Your gran’ther knew him very well ; and he was a 
deacon in the church in Dedham afore he died. He 
was at Lexington when the fust gun was fired agin 
the British. He was a dreffle smart man, Cap’n Eb 
was, and driv team a good many years atween here 
and Boston. He married Lois Peabody, that was 
cousin to your gran’ther then. Lois was a rael 
sensible woman ; and I’ve heard her tell the story 
as he told her, and it was jest as he told it to me, — 
jest exactly ; and I shall never forget it if I live to 
be nine hundred years old, like Mathuselah. 

“ Ye see, along back in them times, there used to 


8 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


be a fellow come round these ’ere parts, spring and 
fall, a-peddlin’ goods, with his pack on his back ; and 
his name was Jehiel Lommedieu. Nobody rightly 
knew where he come from. He wasn’t much of a 
talker; but the women rather liked him, and kind 
o’ liked to have him round. Women will like some 
fellows, when men can’t see no sort o’ reason why 
they should ; and they liked this ’ere Lommedieu, 
though he was kind o’ mournful and thin and shad- 
bellied, and hadn’t nothin’ to say for himself. But 
it got to be so, that the women would count and 
calculate so many weeks afore ’twas time for Lom- 
medieu to be along ; and they’d make up ginger- 
snaps and preserves and pies, and make him stay 
to tea at the houses, and feed him up on the best 
there was : and the story went round, that he was 
a-courtin’ Phebe Ann Parker, or Phebe Ann was 
a-courtin’ him, — folks didn’t rightly know which. 
Wal, all of a sudden, Lommedieu stopped cornin’ 
round ; and nobody knew why, — only jest he didn’t 
come. It turned out that Phebe Ann Parker had 
got a letter from him, sayin’ he’d be along afore 
Thanksgiving ; but he didn’t come, neither afore 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


9 


nor at Thanksgiving time, nor arter, nor next spring : 
and finally the women they gin up lookin’ for him. 
Some said he was dead ; some said he was gone to 
Canada ; and some said he hed gone over to the Old 
Country. 

“Wal, as to Phebe Ann, she acted like a gal o’ 
sense, and married ’Bijah Moss, and thought no more 
’bout it. She took the right view on’t, and said she 
was sartin that all things was ordered out for the 
best ; and it was jest as well folks couldn’t always 
have their own way. And so, in time, Lommedieu 
was gone out o’ folks’s minds, much as a last year’s 
apple-blossom. 

“ It’s relly affectin’ to think how little these ’ere 
folks is missed that’s so much sot by. There ain’t 
nobody, ef they’s ever so important, but what the 
world gets to goin’ on without ’em, pretty much as 
it did with ’em, though there’s some little flurry 
at fust. Wal, the last thing that was in anybody’s 
mind was, that they ever should hear from Lom- 
medieu agin. But there ain’t nothin’ but what has 
its time o’ turnin’ up ; and it seems his turn was to 


come. 


10 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Wal, ye see, ’twas the 19th o’ March, when 
Cap’n Eb Sawin started with a team for Bos- 
ton. That day, there come on about the biggest 
snow-storm that there’d been in them parts sence 
the oldest man could remember. ’Twas this ’ere fine, 
siftin’ snow, that drives in your face like needles, 
with a wind to cut your nose off : it made teamin’ 
pretty tedious work. Cap’n Eb was about the tough- 
est man in them parts. He’d spent days in the 
woods a-loggin’, and he’d been up to the deestrict 
o’ Maine a-lumberin’, and was about up to any sort o’ 
thing a man gen’ally could be up to ; but these ’ere 
March winds sometimes does set on a fellow so, that 
neither natur’ nor grace can stan’ ’em. The cap’n 
used to say he could stan’ any wind that blew one 
way ’t time for five minutes ; but come to winds that 
blew all four p’ints at the same minit, — why, they 
flustered him. 

“ Wal, that was the sort o’ weather it was all day : 
and by sundown Cap’n Eb he got clean bewildered, 
so that he lost his road ; and, when night came on, 
he didn’t know nothin’ where he was. Ye see the 
country was all under drift, and the air so thick with 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


11 


snow, that he couldn’t see a foot afore him ; and the 
fact was, he got off the Boston road without knowin* 
it, and came out at a pair o’ bars nigh upon Sherburn, 
where old Cack Sparrock’s mill is. 

“Your gran’ther used to know old Cack, boys. 
He was a drefful drinkin’ old crittur, that lived there 
all alone in the woods by himself a-tendin’ saw and 
grist mill. He wa’n’t allers jest what he was then. 
Time was that Cack was a pretty consid’ably likely 
young man, and his wife was a very respectable 
woman, — Deacon Amos Petengall’s dater from 
Sherburn. 

“ But ye see, the year arter his wife died, Cack he 
gin up goin’ to meetin’ Sundays, and, all the tithing- 
men and selectmen could do, they couldn’t get him 
out to meetin’ ; and, when a man neglects means o’ 
grace and sanctuary privileges, there ain’t no sayin’ 
what he’ll do next. Why, boys, jist think on’t ! — 
an immortal crittur lyin’ round loose all day Sunday, 
and not puttin’ on so much as a clean shirt, when 
all ’spectable folks has on their best close, and is to 
meetin’ worshippin’ the Lord ! What can you spect 
to come’ of it, when he lies idlin’ round in his old 


12 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


week-day close, fishing, or some sich, but what the 
Devil should be arter him at last, as he was arter 
old Cack ? ” 

Here Sam winked impressively to my grandfather 
in the opposite corner, to call his attention to the 
moral which he was interweaving with his narrative. 

“Wal, ye see, Cap’n Eb he told me, that when he 
come to them bars and looked up, and saw the dark 
a-comin’ down, and the storm a-thickenin’ up, he felt 
that things was gettin’ pretty consid’able serious. 
There was a dark piece o’ woods on ahead of him in- 
side the bars ; and he knew, come to get in there, the 
light would give out clean. So he jest thought he’d 
take the hoss out o’ the team, and go ahead a little, 
and see where he was. So he driv his oxen up ag’in 
the fence, and took out the hoss, and got on him, and 
pushed along through the woods, not rightly knowin’ 
where he was goin’. 

“ Wal, afore long he see a light through the trees ; 
and, sure enough, he come out to Cack Sparrock’s old 
mill. 

“ It was a pretty consid’able gloomy sort of a place, 
that are old mill was. There was a great fall of wa- 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


13 


ter that come rushin’ down the rocks, and fell in a 
deep pool ; and it sounded sort o’ wild and lonesome : 
but Cap’n Eb he knocked on the door with his whip- 
handle, and got in. 

“ There, to be sure, sot old Cack beside a great 
blazin’ fire, with his rum-jug at his elbow. He was a 
drefful fellow to drink, Cack was ! For all that, there 
was some good in him, for he was pleasant-spoken and 
’bliging ; and he made the cap’n welcome. 

“ ‘ Ye see, Cack,’ said Cap’n Eb, ‘ I ’m off my road, 

; and got snowed up down by your bars,’ says he. 

“ ‘ Want ter know ! ’ says Cack. ‘ Calculate you’ll 
jest have to camp down here till mornin’,’ says he. 

“ Wal, so old Cack he got out his tin lantern, and 
went with Cap’n Eb back to the bars to help him 
fetch along his critturs. He told him he could put ’em 
under the mill-shed. So they got the critturs up to 
the shed, and got the cart under ; and by that time 
the storm was awful. 

“ But Cack he made a great roarin’ fire, ’cause, ye 
see, Cack allers had slab- wood a plenty from his mill ; 
and a roarin’ fire is jest so much company. It sort o’ 
keeps a fellow’s spirits up, a good fire does. So Cack 


14 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


he sot on his old teakettle, and made a swingeing lot 
o’ toddy ; and he and Cap’n Eb were havin’ a tol’able 
comfortable time there. Cack was a pretty good 
hand to tell stories ; and Cap’n Eb warn’t no way back- 
ward in that line, and kep’ up his end pretty well : 
and pretty soon they was a-roarin’ and haw-hawin 5 
inside about as loud as the storm outside ; when all of 
a sudden, ’bout midnight, there come a loud rap on 
the door. 

44 4 Lordy massy ! what’s that ? ’ says Cack. Folks 
is rather startled allers to be checked up sudden when 
they are a-carryin’ on and laughin’; and it was such 
an awful blowy night, it was a little scary to have a 
rap on the door. 

44 Wal, they waited a minit, and didn’t hear nothin’ 

but the wind a-screechin’ round the chimbley ; and 

old Cack was jest goin’ on with his story, when the 

* 

rap come ag’in, harder’n ever, as if it’d shook the : 
door open. 

44 4 Wal,’ says old Cack, 4 if ’tis the Devil, we’d 
jest as good’s open, and have it out with him to onst,’ 
says he ; and so he got up and opened the door, and, 
sure enough, there was old Ketury there. Expect 


TIIE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


15 


you’ve heard your grandma tell about old Ketury. 
She used to come to meetin’s sometimes, and her hus- 
band was one o’ the prayin’ Indians ; but Ketury was 
one of the rael wild sort, and you couldn’t no more 
convert her than you could convert a wild-cat or a 
painter [panther]. Lordy massy! Ketury used to 
come to meetin’, and sit there on them Indian benches ; 
j and when the second bell was a-tollin’, and when Par- 
son Lothrop and his wife was cornin’ up the broad 
aisle, and everybody in the house ris’ up and stood, 
Ketury would sit there, and look at ’em out o’ the cor- 
ner o’ her eyes ; and folks used to say she rattled them 
necklaces o’ rattlesnakes’ tails and wild-cat teeth, and 
sich like heathen trumpery, and looked for all the 
world as if the spirit of the old Sarpent himself was 
in her. I’ve seen her sit and look at Lady Lothrop 
out o’ the corner o’ her eyes ; and her old brown baggy 
neck would kind o’ twist and work ; and her eyes they 
looked so, that ’twas enough to scare a body. For 
all the world, she looked jest as if she was a-workin’ 
up to spring at her. Lady Lothrop was jest as kind 
to Ketury as she always was to every poor crittur. 
She’d bow and smile as gracious to her when meetin’ 


16 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


was over, and she come down the aisle, passin’ out o, 
meetin’ ; but Ketury never took no notice. Ye see, 
Ketury’s father was one o’ them great powwows down 
to Martha’s Vineyard ; and people used to say she was 
set apart, when she was a child, to the sarvice o’ the 
Devil : any way, she never could be made nothin’ of 
in a Christian way. She come down to Parson 
Lothrop’s study once or twice to be catechised ; but 
he couldn’t get a word out o’ her, and she kind o’ 
seemed to sit scornful while he was a-talkin’. Folks 
said, if it was in old times, Ketury wouldn’t have been 
allowed to go on so ; but Parson Lothrop’s so sort 
o’ mild, he let her take pretty much her own way. 
Everybody thought that Ketury was a witch : at least, 
she knew consid’able more’n she ought to know, and 
so they was kind o’ ’fraid on her. Cap’n Eb says he 
never see a fellow seem scareder than Cack did when 
he see Ketury a-standin’ there. 

“ Why, ye see, boys, she was as withered and wrin- 
kled and brown as an old frosted punkin-vine ; and her 
little snaky eyes sparkled and snapped, and it made 
yer head kind o’ dizzy to look at ’em ; and folks used 
to say that anybody that Ketury got mad at was 


• / C> 


Wv 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


17 


sure to get the worst of it fust or last. And so, no 
matter what day or hour Ketury had a mind to rap at 
anybody’s door, folks gen’lly thought it was best to 
let her in ; but then, they never thought her coming 
was for any good, for she was just like the wind, — she 
came when the fit was on her, she staid jest so long 
as it pleased her, and went when she got ready, and 
not before. Ketury understood English, and could 
talk it well enough, but always seemed to scorn it, 
and was allers mowin’ and mutterin’ to herself in In- 
dian, and winkin’ and blinkin’ as if she saw more 
folks round than you did, so that she wa’n’t no way 
pleasant company ; and yet everybody took good care 
to be polite to her. 

So old Cack asked her to come in, and didn’t make 
no question where she come from, or what she come 
on ; but he knew it was twelve good miles from where 
she lived to his hut, and the snow was drifted above 
her middle : and Cap’n Eb declared that there wa n t 
no track, nor sign o’ a track, of anybody’s coming 
through that snow next morning.” 

“How did she get there, then ? ” said I. 

“ Didn’t ye never see brown leaves a-ridin’ on the 


2 * 


18 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


wind ? Well,’ Cap’n Eb he says, ‘ she came on the 
wind,’ and I’m sure it was strong enough to fetch her. 
But Cack he got her down into the warm corner, 
and he poured her out a mug o’ hot toddy, and give 
her: but ye see her bein’ there sort o’ stopped the 
conversation ; for she sot there a-rockin’ back’ards and 
for’ards, a-sippin her toddy, and a-mutterin’, and 
lookin’ up chimbley. 

“ Cap’n Eb says in all his born days he never hearn 
such screeches and yells as the wind give over that 
chimbley ; and old Cack got so frightened, you could 
fairly hear his teeth chatter. 

“ But Cap’n Eb he was a putty brave man, and he 
wa’n’t goin’ to have conversation stopped by no wo- 
man, witch or no witch ; and so, when he see her mut- 
terin’, and lookin’ up chimbley, he spoke up, and says 
he, ‘Well, Ketury, what do you see?’ says he. 
‘ Come, out with it ; don’t keep it to yourself.’ Ye see 
Cap’n Eb was a hearty fellow, and then he was a 
leetle warmed up with the toddy. 

“ Then he said he see an evil kind o’ smile on Ke- 
tury’s face, and she rattled her necklace o’ bones and 
snakes’ tails ; and her eyes seemed to snap ; and she 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


19 


looked up the chimbley, and called out, 4 Come down, 
come down ! let ’s see who ye be.’ 

“ Then there was a scratchin’ and a rumblin’ and 
a groan ; and a pair of feet come down the chimbley, 
and stood right in the middle of the haarth, the toes 
pi’ntin’ out’rds, with shoes and silver buckles a-shin- 
in’ in the firelight. Cap’n Eb says he never come 
so near bein’ scared in his life ; and, as to old Cack, 
he jest wilted right down in his chair. 

“ Then old Ketury got up, and reached her stick up 
chimbley, and called out louder, 4 Come down, come 
down ! let’s see who ye be.’ And, sure enough, down 
came a pair o’ legs, and j’ined right on to the feet : 
good fair legs they was, with ribbed stockings and 
leather breeches. 

“ 4 Wal, we’re in for it now,’ says Cap’n Eb. 4 Go 
it, Ketury, and let’s have the rest on him.’ 

44 Ketury didn’t seem to mind him : she stood there 
as stiff as a stake, and kep’ callin’ out, 4 Come down, 
come down ! let’s see who ye be.’ And then come 
down the body of a man with a brown coat and yellow 
vest, and j’ined right on to the legs ; but there wa’n't 
no arms to it. Then Ketury shook her stick up chim- 


20 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


bley, and called, 4 Come down , come down ! ’ And there 
came down a pair o’ arms, and went on each side o’ 
the body ; and there stood a man all finished, only 
there wa’n’t no head on him. 

“ 4 Wal, Ketury,’ says Cap’n Eb , 4 this ’ere’s getting 
serious. I ’spec’ you must finish him up, and let’s 
see what he wants of us.’ 

44 Then Ketury called out once more, louder’n ever, 
4 Come down, come down ! let’s see who ye be.’ And, 
sure enough, down comes a man’s head, and settled 
on the shoulders straight enough ; and Cap’n Eb, the 
minit he sot eyes on him, knew he was Jehiel Lom- 
medieu. 

44 Old Cack knew him too ; and he fell flat on his face, 
and prayed the Lord to have mercy on his soul : but 
Cap’n Eb he was for gettin’ to the bottom of matters, 
and not have his scare for nothin’ ; so he says to him, 
4 What do you want, now you hev come ? ’ 

44 The man he didn’t speak ; he only sort o’ moaned, 
and p’inted to the chimbley. lie seemed to try to 
speak, but couldn’t ; for ye see it isn’t often that his 
sort o’ folks is permitted to speak : but just then 
there came a screechin’ blast o’ wind, and bio wed the 



“ Old Cack knew him loo” — Page 20, 
























THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


21 


door open, and blowed the smoke and fire all out 
into the room, and there seemed to be a whirlwind and 
darkness and moans and screeches ; and, when it all 
cleared up, Ketury and the man was both gone, and 
only old Cack lay on the ground, rolling and moaning 
as if he’d die. 

“ Wal, Cap’n Eb he picked him up, and built up 
the fire, and sort o’ comforted him up, ’cause the crit- 
tur was in distress o’ mind that was drefful. The 
awful Providence, ye see, had awakened him, and his 
sin had been set home to his soul ; and he was under 
such conviction, that it all had to come out, — how 
old Cack’s father had murdered poor Lommedieu for 
his money, and Cack had been privy to it, and helped 
his father build the body up in that very chimbley ; 
and he said that he hadn’t had neither peace nor rest; 
since then, and that was what had driv’ him away 
from ordinances ; for ye know sinnin’ will always 
make a man leave prayin’. Wal, Cack didn’t live 
but a day or two. Cap’n Eb he got the minister o’ 
Sherburn and one o’ the selectmen down to see him ; 
and they took his deposition. He seemed railly quite 
penitent ; and Parson Carryl he prayed with him, and 


22 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


was faithful in settin’ home the providence to his 
soul : and so, at the eleventh hour, poor old Cack might 
have got in ; at least it looks a leetle like it. He was 
distressed to think he couldn’t live to be hung. He 
sort o’ seemed to think, that if he was fairly tried, and 
hung, it would make it all square. He made Parson 
Carryl promise to have the old mill pulled down, and 
bury the body ; and, after he was dead, they did it. 

“ Cap’n Eb he was one of a party o’ eight that 
pulled down the chimbley ; and there, sure enough, 
was the skeleton of poor Lommedieu. 

“ So there you see, boys, there can’t be no iniquity 
so hid but what it’ll come out. The wild Indians of 
the forest, and the stormy winds and tempests, j’ined 
together to bring out this ’ere.” 

“ For my part,” said Aunt Lois sharply, “ I never 
believed that story.” 

“ Why, Lois,” said my grandmother, “ Cap’n Eb 
Sawin was a regular church-member, and a most re- 
spectable man.” 

“Law, mother! I don’t doubt he thought so. I 
suppose he and Cack got drinking toddy together, till 
he got asleep, and dreamed it. I wouldn’t believe 


THE GHOST IN THE MILL. 


23 


sucli a thing if it did happen right before my face 
and eyes. I should only think I was crazy, that’s all.” 

“ Come, Lois, if I was you, I wouldn’t talk so like 
a Sadducee,” said my grandmother. “ What would 
become of all the accounts in Dr. Cotton Mather’s 
4 Magnilly ’ if folks were like you ? ” 

44 Wal,” said Sam Lawson, drooping contemplatively 
over the coals, and gazing into the fire, “ there’s a 
putty consid’able sight o’ things in this world that’s 
true ; and then ag’in there’s a sight o’ things that 
ain’t true. Now, my old gran’ther used to say, 4 Boys, 
says he, 4 if ye want to lead a pleasant and prosperous 
life, ye must contrive alters to keep jest the happy 
medium between truth and falsehood.’ Now, that 
are’s my doctrine.” 

Aunt Lois knit severely. 

“ Boys,” said Sam, 44 don’t you want ter go down 
with me and get a mug o’ cider ? ” 

Of course we did, and took down a basket to bring 
up some apples to roast. 

44 Boys,” says Sam mysteriously, while he was 
drawing the cider, 44 you jest ask your Aunt Lois to 
tell you what she knows ’bout Ruth Sullivan.” 


24 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Why, what is it ? ” 

“ Oh ! you must ask her . These ’ere folks that’s so 
kind o’ -toppin’ about sperits and sich, come sift ’em 
down, you gen’lly find they knows one story that kind 
o’ puzzles ’em. Now you mind, and jist ask your 
Aunt Lois about Ruth Sullivan.” 



THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 

UNT LOIS,” said I, “ what was that 
story about Ruth Sullivan ? ” 

Aunt Lois’s quick black eyes gave 
a surprised flash ; and she and my 
grandmother looked at each other 
a minute significantly. 

“ Who told you any thing about 
Ruth Sullivan,” she said sharply. 

“ Nobody. Somebody said you knew something 
about her,” said I. 

I was holding a skein of yarn for Aunt Lois; 
and she went on winding in silence, putting the ball 
through loops and tangled places. 

“Little boys shouldn’t ask questions,” she con- 
cluded at last sententiously. “Little boys that ask 
too many questions get sent to bed.” 



3 


26 


26 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


I knew that of old, and rather wondered at my 
own hardihood. ^ 

Aunt Lois wound on in silence ; but, looking in her 
face, I could see plainly that I had started an 
exciting topic. 

“ I should think,” pursued my grandmother in her 
corner, “ that Ruth's case might show you, Lois, that 
a good many things may happen, — more than you 
believe.” 

“ Oh, well, mother ! Ruth’s was a strange case ; 
but I suppose there are ways of accounting for it.” 

“ You believed Ruth, didn’t you? ” 

“ Oh, certainly, I believed Ruth ! Why shouldn’t 
I? Ruth was one of my best friends, and as true a 
girl as lives : there wasn’t any nonsense about Ruth. 
She was one of the sort,” said Aunt Lois reflectively, 
“ that I’d as soon trust as myself : when she said a 
thing was so and so, I knew it was so.” 

“ Then, if you think Ruth’s story was true,” pur- 
sued my grandmother, “ what’s the reason you are 
always cavilling at things just ’cause you can’t un- 
derstand how they came to be so ? ” 

Aunt Lois set her. lips firmly, and wound with grim 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


27 


resolve. She was the very impersonation of that 
^^tinate rationalism that grew up at the New-Eng- 
land fireside, close alongside of the most undoubting 
faith in the supernatural. 

“ I don’t believe such things,” at last she snapped 
out, “ and I don’t disbelieve them. I just let ’em 
alone. What do I know about ’em ? Ruth tells me 
a story ; and I believe her. I know what she saw 
beforehand, came true in a most remarkable way. 
Well, I’m sure I’ve no objection. One thing may 
be true, or another, for all me ; but, just because 
I believe Ruth Sullivan, I’m not going to be- 
lieve, right and left, all the stories in Cotton Mather, 
and all that anybody can hawk up to tell. Not I.” 

This whole conversation made me all the more 
curious to get at the story thus dimly indicated ; and 
so we beset Sam for information. 

“ So your Aunt Lois wouldn’t tell ye nothin’,” said 
Sam. “ Wanter know, neow ! sho ! ” 

“ No : she said we must go to bed if we asked her.” 

“ That ’are’s a way folks has ; but, ye see, boys,” 
said Sam, while a droll confidential expression 
crossed the lack-lustre dolefulness of his visage, “ ye 


28 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


see, I put ye up to it, ’cause Miss Lois is so large and 
commandin’ in her ways, and so kind o’ up an<^ 
down in all her doin’s, that I like once and a while to 
sort o’ gravel her ; and I knowed enough to know 
that that ’are question would git her in a tight place. 

“Ye see, yer Aunt Lois was knowin’ to all this ’ere 
about Ruth, so there wer’n’t no gettin’ away from it ; 
and it’s about as remarkable a providence as any o’ 
them of Mister Cotton Marther’s ‘ Magnilly.’ So if 
you’ll come up in the barn-chamber this arternoon, 
where I’ve got a lot o’ flax to hatchel out, I’ll tell 
ye all about it.” 

So that afternoon beheld Sam arranged at full 
length on a pile of top-tow in the barn-chamber, 
hatchelling by proxy by putting Harry and myself to 
the service. 

“ Wal, now, boys, it’s kind o’ refreshing to see how 
wal ye take hold,” he observed. “ Nothin’ like bein’ 
industrious while ye’r young: gret sight better 
now than loafin off, down in them medders. 

“ ‘ In books and work and useful play 
Let my fust years be past : 

So shall I give for every day 
Some good account at last/ ” 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 29 

“ But, Sam, if we work for you, you must tell us 
^hat story about Rutb Sullivan.” 

“ Lordy massy ! yis, — course I will. I’ve had the 
best kind o’ chances of knowin’ all about that ’are. 
Wal, you see there was old Gineral Sullivan, he lived 
in state and grande’r in the old Sullivan house out to 
Roxberry. I been to Roxberry, and seen that ’are 
house o’ Gineral Sullivan’s. There was one time 
that I was a consid’able spell lookin’ round in Rox- 
berry, a kind o’ seein’ how things wuz there, and 
whether or no there mightn’t be some sort o’ provi- 
dential openin’ or suthin’. I used to stay with Aunt 
Polly Ginger. She was sister to Mehitable Ginger, 
Gineral Sullivan’s housekeeper, and hed the in and 
out o’ the Sullivan house, and kind o’ kept the run o’ 
how things went and came in it. Polly she was a 
kind o’ cousin o’ my mother’s, and allers glad to see 
me. Fact was, I was putty handy round house ; and 
she used to save up her broken things and sich till I 
come round in the fall ; and then I’d mend ’em up, 
and put the clock right, and split her up a lot o’ kin- 
dlings, and board up the cellar- windows, and kind o’ 
make her sort o’ comfortable, — she bein’ a lone body, 


3 * 


30 


C T ,DTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


and no man round. As I said, it was sort o’ conve> 



in the Sullivan house pretty much as ef I was one on 
’em. Gineral Sullivan he kept a grand house, I tell 
you. You see, he cum from the old country, and felt 
sort o’ lordly and grand ; and they used to hev the 
gretest kind o’ doin’s there to the Sullivan house. 
Ye ought ter a seen that ’are house, — gret big front 
hall and gret wide stairs ; none o’ your steep kind 
that breaks a feller’s neck to get up and down, but 
gret broad stairs with easy risers, so they used to say 
you could a cantered a pony up that ’are stairway 
easy as not. Then there was g^et wide rooms, and 
sofys, and curtains, and gret curtained bedsteads that 
looked sort o’ like fortifications, and pictur’s that 
was got i« Italy and Rome and all them ’are heathen 
places. Ye see, the Gineral was a drefful worldly 
old critter, and was all for the pomps and the vani- 
ties. Lordy massy ! I wonder what the poor old 
critter thinks about it all now, when his body’s all 
gone to dust and ashes in the graveyard, and his 
soul’s gone to ’tarnity ! Wal, that are ain’t none o’ 
my business ; only it shows the vanity o’ riches in a 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


31 


kind o’ strikin’ light, and makes me content that 1 
never hed none.” 

“ But, Sam, I hope General Sullivan wasn’t a 
wicked man, ivas he ? ” 

“ Wal, I wouldn’t say he was railly wickeder than 
the run ; but he was one o’ these ’ere high-stepping, 
big-feeling fellers, that seem to be a hevin’ their por- 
tion in this life. Drefful proud he was; and he was 
pretty much sot on this world, and kep’ a sort o’ court 
goin’ on round him. Wal, I don’t jedge him nor no- 
body : folks that hes the world is apt to get sot on it. 
Don’t none on us do more than middlin’ well.” 

“But, Sam, what about Ruth Sullivan ? ” 

“ Ruth ? — Oh, yis ! — Ruth — 

“ Wal, ye see, the only crook in the old Gineral’s 
lot was he didn’t hev no children. Mis’ Sullivan, she 
was a beautiful woman, as handsome as a pictur’ ; 
but she never had but one child ; and he was a son 
who died when he was a baby, and about broke her 
heart. And then this ’ere Ruth was her sister’s child, 
that was born about the same time ; and, when the 
boy died, they took Ruth home to sort o’ fill his place, 
and kind o’ comfort up Mis’ Sullivan. And then 


32 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


Ruth’s father and mother died ; and they adopted 
her for their own, and brought her up. 

“ Wal, she grew up to be amazin’ handsome. Why, 
everybody said that she was jest the light and glory 
of that ’are old Sullivan place, and worth more’n all 
the pictur’s and the silver and the jewels, and all 
there was in the house ; and she was jest so innercent 
and sweet, that you never see nothing to beat it. 
Wal, your Aunt Lois she got acquainted with Ruth 
one summer when she was up to Old Town a visitin’ 
at Parson Lotlirop’s. Your Aunt Lois was a gal then, 
and a pretty good-lookin’ one too ; and, somehow or 
other, she took to Ruth, and Ruth took to her. And 
when Ruth went home, they used to be a writin’ 
backwards and forads ; and I guess the fact was, Ruth 
thought about as much of your Aunt Lois as she did 
o’ anybody. Ye see, your aunt was a kind o’ strong 
up-and-down woman that always knew certain jest 
what she did know; and Ruth, she was one o’ them 
gals that seems sort o’ like a stray lamb or a dove 
that’s sort o’ lost their way in the world, and wants 
some one to show ’em where to go next. For, ye see, 
the fact was, the old Gineral and Madam, they didn’t 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


33 


agree very well. He wa’n’t well pleased that she 
didn’t have no children; and she was sort o’ jealous 
o’ him ’cause she got hold o’ some sort of story about 
how he was to a married somebody else over there 
in England : so she got sort o’ riled up, jest as wim- 
men will, the best on ’em ; and they was pretty apt 
to have spats, and one could give t’other as good as 
they sent ; and, by all accounts, they fit putty lively 
sometimes. And, between the two, Ruth she was 
sort o’ scared, and fluttered like a dove that didn’t 
know jest where to settle. Ye see, there she was in 
that ’are great wide house, where they was a feastin’ 
and a prancin’ and a dancin’, and a goin’ on like 
Ahashuerus and Herodias and all them old Scriptur’ 
days. There was a cornin’ and goin,’ and there was 
gret dinners and gret doin’s, but no love ; and, you 
know, the Scriptur’ says, ‘ Better is a dinner o’ yarbs, 
where love is, than a stalled ox, and hatred there- 
with.’ 

“ Wal, I don’t orter say hatred, arter all. I kind o’ 
reckon, the old Gineral did the best he could : the 
fact is, when a woman gits a kink in her head agin 
a man, the best on us don’t allers do jest the right 
thing. 


34 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Any way, Ruth, she was sort o’ forlorn, and didn’t 
seem to take no comfort in the goin’s on. The Gin- 
eral he was mighty fond on her, and proud on 
her ; and there wa’n’t nothin’ too good for Ruth. He 
was free-handed, the Gineral wuz. He dressed her 
up in silks and satins, and she hed a maid to wait 
on her, and she hed sets o’ pearl and dimond ; and 
Madam Sullivan she thought all the world on her, 
and kind o’ worshipped the ground she trod on. And 
yet Ruth was sort o’ lonesome. 

“Ye see, Ruth wa’n’t calculated for grande’r. 
Some folks ain’t. 

“ Why, that ’are summer she spent out to Old 
Town, she was jest as chirk and chipper as a wren, a 
wearin’ her little sun-bunnet, and goin’ a huckle- 
berryin’ and a black-berryin’ and diggin’ sweet- flag, 
and gettin cowslops and dandelions ; and she hed a 
word for everybody. And everybody liked Ruth, 
and wished her well. Wal, she was sent for her 
health ; and she got that, and more too : she got a 
sweetheart. 

“ Ye see, there was a Cap’n Oliver a visitin’ at the 
minister’s that summer, — a nice, handsome young 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


35 


man as ever was. He and Ruth and your Aunt Lflfis, 
they was together a good deal ; and they was a ram- 
blin’ and a ridin’ and a sailin’ : and so Ruth and the 
Capting went the way o’ all the airth, and fell dead 
in love with each other. Your Aunt Lois she was 
knowing to it and all about it, ’cause Ruth she was 
| jest one of them that couldn’t take a step without 
somebody to talk to. 

“ Captain Oliver was of a good family in Eng- 
land ; and so, when he made bold to ask the old 
Gineral for Ruth, he didn’t say him nay : and it was 
i. agreed, as they was young, they should wait a year 
: or two. If he and she was of the same mind, he 
should be free to marry her. Jest right on that, the 
Captain’s regiment was ordered home, and he had to 
go ; and, the next they heard, it was sent off to India. 
And poor little Ruth she kind o’ drooped and pined ; 
but she kept true, and wouldn’t have nothin’ to say 
to nobody that came arter her, for there was lots and 
cords o’ fellows as did come arter her. Ye see, Ruth 
had a takin’ way with her ; and then she had the 
name of bein’ a great heiress, and that allers draws 
fellers, as molasses does flies. 


36 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“Wal, then the news came, that Captain Oliver 
was cornin’ home to England, and the ship was took 
by the Algerenes, and he was gone into slavery there 
among them heathen Mahomedans and what not. 

“ Folks seemed to think it was all over with him. 
and Ruth might jest as well give up fust as last. 
And the old Gineral he’d come to think she might do 
better ; and he kep’ a introducin’ one and another, 
and tryin’ to marry her off ; but Ruth she wouldn’t. 
She used to write sheets and sheets to your Aunt 
Lois about it ; and I think Aunt Lois she kep’ her 
grit up. Your Aunt Lois she’d a stuck by a man to 
the end o’ time eft ben her case ; and so she told 
Ruth. 

“Wal, then there was young Jeff Sullivan, the 
Gineral’s nephew, he turned up ; and the Gineral he 
took a gret fancy to him. He was next heir to the 
Gineral ; but he’d ben a pretty rackety youngster in 
his young days, — off to sea, and what not, and sowed 
a consid’able crop o’ wild oats. People said he’d 
been a pirating off there in South Ameriky. Lordy 
massy ! nobody rightly knew where he hed ben or 
where he hadn’t : all was, he turned up at last all 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 37 

alive, and chipper as a skunk blackbird. Wal, of 
course he made his court to Ruth ; and the Gineral, 
he rather backed him up in it ; but Ruth she wouldn’t 
have nothin’ to say to him. Wal, he come and took 
up his lodgin’ at the Gineral’s ; and he was jest as 
slippery as an eel, and sort o’ slid into every thing, 
that was a goin’ on in the house and about it. He 
was here, and he was there, and he was everywhere, 
and a havin’ his say about this and that ; and he got 
everybody putty much under his thumb. And they 
used to say, he wound the Gineral round and round 
like a skein o’ yarn ; but he couldn’t come it round 
Ruth. 

“ Wal, the Gineral said she shouldn’t be forced ; and 
Jeff, he was smooth as satin, and said he’d be willing 
to wait as long as Jacob did for Rachel. And so there 
he sot down, a watchin’ as patient as a cat at a mouse- 
hole ; ’cause the Gineral he was thick-set and short- 
necked, and drank pretty free, and was one o’ the sort 
that might pop off any time. 

“ Wal, Mis’ Sullivan, she beset the Gineral to make 
a provision for Ruth ; ’cause she told him very sensi- 
ble, that he’d brought her up in luxury, and that it 

4 


38 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


wa’n’t fair not to settle somethin’ on her ; and so the 
Gineral he said he’d make a will, and part the prop- 
erty equally between them. And he says to Jeff, that, | 
if he played his part as a young fellow oughter know 
how, it would all come to him in the end ; ’cause they 
hadn’t heard nothing from Captain Oliver for three 
or four years, and folks about settled it that he must 
be dead. 

“ Wal, the Gineral he got a letter about an estate 
that had come to him in England ; and he had to go 
over. Wal, livin’ on the next estate, was the very 
cousin of the Gineral’s that he was to a married when 
they was both young : the lands joined so that the 
grounds run together. What came between them 
two nobody knows ; but she never married, and there 
she was. There was high words between the Gin- 
eral and Madam Sullivan about his goin’ over. She 
said there wa’n’t no sort o’ need on’t, and he said 
there was ; and she said she hoped she should be in 
her grave afore he come back; and he said she might 
suit herself about that for all him. That ’are was the 
story that the housekeeper told to Aunt Polly ; and 
Aunt Polly she told me. These ’ere squabbles some- 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


39 


how allers does kind o’ leak out one way or t’other. 
Anyhow, it was a house divided agin itself at the 
Gineral’s, when he was a fixin’ out for the voyage. 
There was Ruth a goin’ fust to one, and then to t’other, 
and tryin’ all she could to keep peace beteen ’em ; and 
there was this ’ere Master Slick Tongue talkin’ this 
way to one side, and that way to t’other, and the old 
Gineral kind o’ like a shuttle-cock atween ’em. 

“Wal, then, the night afore he sailed, the Gineral he 
lied his lawyer up in his library there, a lookin’ over 
all his papers and bonds and things, and a witnessing 
his will ; and Master Jeff was there, as lively as a 
cricket, a goin’ into all affairs, and offerin’ to take 
: precious good care while he was gone ; and the Gin- 
; eral he had his papers and letters out, a sortin’ on 
’em over, which was to be took to the old country, and 
which was to be put in a trunk to go back to Lawyer 
Dennis’s office. 

“ Wal, Abner Ginger, Polly’s boy, he that was 
footman and waiter then at the Gineral’s, he told me, 
that, about eight o’clock that evening he went up with 
hot water and lemons and sperits and sich, and he see 
the gret green table in the library all strewed and 


40 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


covered with piles o’ papers ; and there was tin boxes 
a standin’ round ; and the Gineral a packin’ a trunk, 
and young Master Jeff, as lively and helpful as a rat 
that smells cheese. And then the Gineral he saj s, 

‘ Abner,’ says he, 4 can you write your name ? ’ — 4 1 
should hope so, Gineral.’ says Abner. — 4 Wal, then, 
Abner,’ says he, 4 this is my last will ; and I want you 
to witness it,’ and so Abner he put down his name 
opposite to a place with a wafer and a seal ; and then 
the Gineral, he says, 4 Abner, you tell Ginger to come 
here.’ That, you see, was his housekeeper, my Aunt 
Polly’s sister, and a likely woman as ever was. And 
so they had her up, and she put down her name to 
the will ; and then Aunt Polly she was had up (she 
was drinking tea there that night), and she put down 
her name. And all of ’em did it with good heart, 
’cause it had got about among ’em that the will was 
to provide for Miss Ruth ; for everybody loved 
Ruth, ye see, and there was consid’ble many stories 
kind o’ goin’ the rounds about Master Jeff and his 
doin’s. And they did say he sort o’ kep’ up the strife 
atween the Gineral and my lady, and so they didn’t 
think none too well o’ him ; and, as he was next o’ 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


41 


kin, and Miss Ruth wa’n’t none o’ the Gineral’s blood 
(ye see, she was Mis’ Sullivan’s sister’s child), of 
course there wouldn’t nothin’ go to Miss Ruth in way 
o’ law, and so that was why the signin’ o’ that ’are 
will was so much talked about among ’em.” 

“Wal, you see, the Gineral he sailed the next 
day; and Jeff he staid by to keep watch o’ things. 

“ Wal, the old Gineral he got over safe ; for Miss 
Sullivan, she had a letter from him all right. When 
he got away, his conscience sort o’ nagged him, and 
he was minded to be a good husband. At any rate, he 
wrote a good loving letter to her, and sent his love to 
Ruth, and sent over lots o’ little keepsakes and things 
for her, and told her that he left her under good pro- 
tection, and wanted her to try and make up her mind 
to marry Jeff, as that would keep the property to- 
gether. 

“ Wal, now there couldn’t be no sort o’ sugar 
sweeter than Jeff was to them lone wimmen. Jeff 
j was one o’ the sort that could be all things to all 
wimmen. He waited and he tended, and he was as 
humble as any snake in the grass that ever ye see • 
and the old lady, she clean fell in with him, but Ruth, 




i* 


42 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


she seemed to have a regular spite agin him. And she 
that war as gentle as a lamb, that never had so much 
as a hard thought of a mortal critter, and wouldn’t 
tread on a worm, she was so set agin Jeff, that she 
wouldn’t so much as touch his hand when she got 
out o’ her kerridge. 

“ Wal, now comes the strange part o’ my story. 
Ruth was one o’ the kind that Ties the gift o’ seein ’. 
She was born with a veil over her face!” 

This mysterious piece of physiological information 
about Ruth was given with a look and air that 
announced something very profound and awful ; and 
we both took up the inquiry, “ Bom with a veil over 
her face ? How should that make her see ? ” 

“ Wal, boys, how should I know ? But the fact is 
so. There’s those as is wal known as hes the gift o’ 
seein’ what others can’t see: they can see through 
walls and houses ; they can see people’s hearts ; they 
can see what’s to come. They don’t know nothin’ 
how ’tis, but this ’ere knowledge comes to ’em : it’s a 
gret gift; and that sort’s born with the veil over 
their faces. Ruth was o’ these ’ere. Old Granny 
Badger she was the knowingest old nuss in all these 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


43 


parts ; and she was with Ruth’s mother when she was 
born, and she told Lady Lothrop all about it. Saj^s 
she, 4 You may depend upon it that child ’ll have the 
“ second-sight ,” ’ says she. Oh, that ’are fact was wal 
known ! Wal, that was the reason why Jeff Sullivan 
couldn’t come it round Ruth tho’ he was silkier 
than a milkweed-pod, and jest about as patient as a 
spider in his hole a watchin’ to get his grip on a fly. 
Ruth wouldn’t argue with him, and she wouldn’t 
flout him ; but she jest shut herself up in herself, and 
kept a lookout on him ; but she told your Aunt Lois 
jest what she thought about him. 

“ Wal, in about six months, come the news that the 
Gineral was dead. He dropped right down in his 
tracks, dead with apoplexy, as if he had been shot ; 
and Lady Maxwell she writ a long letter to my lady 
and Ruth. Ye see, he’d got to be Sir Thomas Sullivan 
over there ; and he was a cornin’ home to take ’em all 
over to England to live in grande’r. Wal, my Lady 
Sullivan (she was then, ye see) she took it drefful 
hard. Ef they’d a been the lovingest couple in the 
world, she couldn’t a took it harder. Aunt Polly, she 
said it was all ’cause she thought so much of him, that 


44 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


she fit him so. There’s women that thinks so much 
o’ their husbands, that they won’t let ’em hev no 
peace o’ their life ; and I expect it war so with her, 
poor soul ! Any way, she went right down smack, 
when she heard he was dead. She was abed, sick, 
when the news come ; and she never spoke nor smiled, 
jest turned her back to everybody, and kinder wilted 
and wilted, and was dead in a week. And there was 
poor little Ruth left all alone in the world, with 
neither kith nor kin but Jeff. 

“ Wal, when the funeral was over, and the time 
app’inted to read the will and settle up matters, there 
wa’n’t no will to be found nowhere, high nor low. 

“ Lawyer Dean he flew round like a parched pea on 
a shovel. He said he thought he could a gone in the 
darkest night, and put his hand on that ’ere will ; but 
when he went where he thought it was, he found it 
warn’t there, and he knowed he’d kep’ it under lock 
and key. What he thought was the will turned out 
to be an old mortgage. Wal, there was an awful 
row and a to-do about it, you may be sure. Ruth, 
she jist said nothin’ good or bad. And her not 
speakin’ made Jeff a sight more uncomfortable than 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


45 


ef she’d a lied it out with him. He told her it 
shouldn’t make no sort o’ difference-; that he should 
alters stand ready to give her all he hed, if she’d' 
only take him with it. And when it came to that 
she only gin him a look, and went out o’ the room. 

“Jeff he flared and flounced and talked, and went 
round and round a rumpussin’ among the papers, but 
no will was forthcoming high or low. Wal, now 
here comes what’s remarkable. Ruth she told this 
’ere, all the particulars, to yer Aunt Lois and Lady 
Lothrop. She said that the night after the funeral 
she went up to her chamber. Ruth had the gret 
front chamber, opposite to Mis’ Sullivan’s. I’ve been 
in it ; it was a monstrous big room, with outlandish 
furniture in it, that the Gineral brought over from an 
old palace out to Italy. And there was a great big 
lookin’-glass over the dressin’-table, that they said 
come from V enice, that swung so that you could see 
the whole room in it. Wal, she was a standin’ front 
o’ this, jist goin’ to undress herself, a hearin’ the rain 
drip on the leaves and the wind a whishin’ and whis- 
perin’ in the old elm-trees, and jist a thinkin’ over 
her lot, and what should she do now, all alone in the 


46 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


world, when of a sudden she felt a kind o’ lightness 
in her head, and she thought she seemed to see 
somebody in the glass a movin’. And she looked be- ! 
hind, and there wa’n’t nobodj' there. Then she 
looked forward in the glass, and saw a strange big 
room, that she’d never seen before, with a long 
painted winder in it ; and along side o’ this stood a 
tall cabinet with a good many drawers in it. And 
she saw herself, and knew that it was herself, in this 
room, along with another woman whose back was 
turned towards her. She saw herself speak to this 
woman, and p’int to the cabinet. She saw the wo- 
man nod her head. She saw herself go to the cabi- 
net, and open the middle drawer, and take out a bun- 
dle o’ papers from the very back end on’t. She saw 
her take out a paper from the middle, and open it, 
and hold it up ; and she knew that there was the 
missin’ will. Wal, it all overcome her so that she 
fainted clean away. And her maid found her a ly- 
in’ front o’ the dressin’-table on the floor. 

“ She was sick of a fever for a week or fortnight 
a’ ter ; and your Aunt Lois she was down takin’ care 
of her ; and, as soon as she got able to be moved, she 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


47 


was took out to Lady Lothrop’s. Jeff he was jist 
as attentive and good as he could be; but she 
wouldn’t bear him near her room. If he so much as 
set a foot on the stairs that led to it she’d know it, 
and got so wild that he hed to be kept from cornin’ 
into the front o’ the house. But he was doin’ his 
best to buy up good words from everybody. He paid 
all the servants double ; he kept every one in their 
places, and did so well by ’em all that the gen’l 
word among ’em was that Miss Ruth couldn’t do 
better than to marry such a nice, open-handed gentle- 
man. 

“ Wal, Lady Lothrop she wrote to Lady Maxwell 
all that hed happened ; and Lady Maxwell, she sent 
over for Ruth to come over and be a companion for 
her, and said she’d adopt her, and be as a mother to 
her. 

“ Wal, then Ruth she went over with some gentle- 
folks that was goin’ back to England, and offered to 
see her safe and sound ; and so she was set down at 
Lady Maxwell’s manor. It was a grand place, she 
said, and such as she never see before, — like them old 
gentry places in England. And Lady Maxwell she 


48 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


made much of her, and cosseted her up for the sake 
of what the old Gineral had said about her. And 
Ruth she told her all her story, and how she believed 
that the will was to be found somewhere, and that 
she should be led to see it yet. 

“She told her, too, that she felt it in her that 
Cap’n Oliver wasn’t dead, and that he’d come back 
yet. And Lady Maxwell she took up for her with 
might and main, and said she’d stand by her. But 
then, ye see, so long as there warn’t no will to be 
found, there warn’t nothin’ to be done. Jeff was the 
next heir ; and he’d got every thing, stock, and lot, and 
the estate in England into the bargain. And folks was 
beginnin’ to think putty well of him, as folks allers 
does when a body is up in the world, and hes houses 
and lands. Lordy massy ! riches allers covers a mul- 
titude o’ sins. 

“Finally, when Ruth hed ben six months with 
her, one day Lady Maxwell got to tellin’ her all 
about her history, and what hed ben atween her 
and her cousin, when they was young, and how they 
hed a quarrel and he flung off to Ameriky, and all 
them things that it don’t do folks no good to remem- 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 49 

ber when it’s all over and can’t be helped. But she 
was a lone body, and it seemed to do her good to 
talk about it. 

“ Finally, she says to Ruth, says she, 4 I’ll show 
you a room in this house you han’t seen before. 
It was the room where we hed that quarrel,’ says 
she ; 4 and the last I saw of him was there, till he 
come back to die,’ says she. 

“ So she took a gret key out of her bunch ; and she 
led Ruth along a long passage-way to the other end 
of the house, and opened on a great library. And the 
minute Ruth came in, she threw up her hands and 
gin a great cry. 4 Oh ! ’ says she, 4 this is the room ! 
and there is the window ! and there is the cabinet ! 
and there in that middle drawer at the back " end in a 
bundle of papers is the will ! 

44 And Lady Maxwell she said, quite dazed, 4 Go 
look,’ says she. And Ruth went, jest as she seed her- 
self do, and opened the drawer, and drew forth from 
the back part a yellow pile of old letters. And in 
the middle of those was the will, sure enough. Ruth 
drew it out, and opened it, and showed it to 
her. 


5 


50 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Wal, you see that will give Ruth the whole of 
the Gineral’s property in America, tho’ it did leave 
the English estate to Jeff. 

“ Wal, the end on’t was like a story-book. 

“Jeff he made believe be mighty glad. And he 
said it must a ben that the Gineral hed got flustered 
with the sperit and water, and put that ’ere will in 
among his letters that he was a doin’ up to take back 
to England. For it was in among Lady Maxwell’s 
letters that she writ him when they was young, and 
that he’d a kep’ all these years and was a takin’ 
back to her. 

“ Wal, Lawyer Dean said he was sure that Jeff 
made himself quite busy and useful that night, a tyin’ 
up the papers with red tape, and a packin’ the Gin- 
eral’s trunk ; and that, when Jeff gin him his bundle to 
lock up in his box, he never mistrusted but what he’d 
got it all right. 

“ Wal, you see it was jest one of them things that 
can’t be known to the jedgment-day. It might a ben 
an accident, and then agin it might not ; and folks 
settled it one way or t’other, ’cordin’ to their ’pinion 
o’ Jeff; but ye see how ’mazin’ handy for him it 


THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS. 


51 


happened ! Why, ef it hadn’t ben for the provi- 
dence I’ve ben a tellin’ about, there it might a lain 
in them old letters, that Lady Maxwell said she 
never hed the heart to look over ! it never would a 
turned up in the world.” 

“ Well,” said I, “ what became of Ruth ? ” 

“ Oh ! Cap’n Oliver he came back all alive, and 
escaped from the Algerines ; and they was married in 
King’s Chapel, and lived in the old Sullivan House, in 
peace and prosperity. That’s jest how the story was ; 
and now Aunt Lois can make what she’s a mind ter 
out on’t.” 

“ And what became of Jeff? ” 

“ Oh ! he started to go over to England, and 
the ship was wrecked off the Irish coast, and 
that was the last of him. He never got to his 
property.” 

“ Good enough for him,” said both of us. 

“ Wal, I don’t know: ’twas pretty hard on Jeff. 
Mebbe he did, and mebbe he didn’t. I'm glad I 
warn’t in his shoes, tho’. I’d rather never hed 
nothin’. This ’ere hastin’ to be rich is sich a drefful 
temptation. 


52 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Wal, now, boys, ye’ve done a nice lot o’ flax, 
and I guess we’ll go up to yer grand’ther’s 
cellar and git a mug o’ cyder. Talkin’ always 
gits me dry.” 



THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 

Scene. — The shady side of a hlueherry-pasture. — Sam Lawson with the hoys, 
picking blueberries. — Sam, loq. 


AL, you see, boys, ’twas just here, — 
Parson CarryPs wife, she died along 
in the forepart o’ March : my cousin 
Iluldy, she undertook to keep house 
for him. The way on’t was, that 
Huldy, she went to take care o’ Mis’ 
Carryl in the fust on’t, when she 
fust took sick. Huldy was a tailoress by trade ; but 
then she was one o’ these ’ere facultised persons that 
has a gift for most any thing, and that was how Mis’ 
Carryl come to set sech ©tore by her, that, when she 
was sick, nothin’ would do for her but she must have 
Huldy round all the time : and the minister, he said 



c* 


53 


54 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


he’d make it good to her all the same, and she 
shouldn’t lose nothin’ by it. And so Huldy, she staid 
with Mis’ Carryl full three months afore she died, 
and got to seein’ to every thing pretty much round 
the place. 

“ Wal, arter Mis’ Carryl died, Parson Carryl, he’d 
got so kind o’ used to hevin’ on her ’round, takin’ 
care o’ things, that he wanted her to stay along a 
spell ; and so Huldy, she staid along a spell, and 
poured out his tea, and mended his close, and made 
pies and cakes, and cooked and washed and ironed, 
and kep’ every thing as neat as a pin. Huldy was a 
drefful chipper sort o’ gal ; and work sort o’ rolled off 
from her like water off a duck’s back. There warn’t 
no gal in Sherburne that could put sich a sight o’ 
work through as Huldy ; and yet, Sunday mornin’, 
she always come out in the singers’ seat like one o’ 
these ’ere June roses, lookin’ so fresh and smilin’, 
and her voice was jest as clear and sweet as a 
meadow lark’s — Lor dy massy ! I ’member how she 
used to sing seme o’ them ’are places where the 
treble and counter used to go together : her voice 
kind o’ trembled a little, and it sort o’ went 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


55 


thro’ and thro’ a feller ! tuck him right where he 
lived ! ” 

Here Sam leaned contemplatively back with his 
head in a clump of sweet fern, and refreshed himself 
with a chew of young wintergreen. “ This ’ere 
young wintergreen, boys, is jest like a feller’s 
thoughts o’ things that happened when he was 
young : it comes up jest so fresh and tender every 
year, the longest time you hev to live ; and you can’t 
help chawin’ on’t tho’ ’tis sort o’ stingin’. I don’t 
never get over likin’ young wintergreen.” 

“ But about Huldah, Sam ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ! about Huldy. Lordy massy ! when a 
feller is Indianin’ round, these ’ere pleasant summer 
days, a feller’s thoughts gits like a flock o’ young 
partridges : they’s up and down and everywhere ; 
’cause one place is jest about as good as another, 
when they’s all so kind o’ comfortable and nice. 
Wal, about Huldy, — as I was a sayin’. She was 
jest as handsome a gal to look at as a feller could 
have ; and I think a nice, well-behaved young gal in 
the singers’ seat of a Sunday is a means o’ grace : it’s 
sort o’ drawin’ to the unregenerate, you know. 


06 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


Why, boys, in them days, I’ve walked ten miles over 
to Sherburne of a Sunday mornin’, jest to play the 
bass-viol in the same singers’ seat with Huldy. She 
was very much respected, Huldy was ; and, when she 
went out to tailorin’, she was allers bespoke six 
months ahead, and sent for in waggins up and down 
for ten miles round ; for the young fellers was allers 
’mazin’ anxious to be sent after Huldy, and was 
quite free to offer to go for her. Wal, after Mis’ 
Carryl died, Huldy got to be sort o’ housekeeper 
at the minister’s, and saw to every thing, and did 
every thing : so that there warn’t a pin out o’ the 
way. 

“ But you know how ’tis in parishes : there allers is 
women that thinks the minister’s affairs belongs to 
them, and they ought to have the rulin’ and guidin’ 
of ’em ; and, if a minister’s wife dies, there’s folks 
that allers has their eyes open on providences, — 
lookin’ out who’s to be the next one. 

“ Now, there was Mis’ Amaziah Pipperidge, a widder 
with snappin’ black eyes, and a hook nose, — kind o’ 
like a hawk ; and she was one o’ them up-and-down 
commandin’ sort o’ women, that feel that they have a 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


57 


call to be seein’ to every thing that goes on in the 
parish, and ’specially to the minister. 

44 Folks did say that Mis' Pipperidge sort o’ sot her 
eye on the parson for herself : wal, now that ’are 
might a been, or it might not. Some folks thought 
it was a very suitable connection. You see she hed a 
good property of her own, right nigh to the minister’s 
lot, and was alters kind o’ active and busy ; so, takin* 
one thing with another, I shouldn’t wonder if Mis’ 
Pipperidge should a thought that Providence p’inted 
that way. At any rate, she went up to Deakin Blod- 
gett’s wife, and they two sort o’ put their heads 
together a mournin’ and condolin’ about the way 
things was likely to go on at the minister’s now Mis’ 
Carryl was dead. Ye see, the parson’s wife, she was 
one of them women who hed their eyes everywhere 
and on every thing. She was a little thin woman, 
but tough as Inger rubber, and smart as a steel trap ; 
and there warn’t a hen laid an egg, or cackled, but Mis’ 
Carryl was right there to see about it ; and she hed 
the garden made in the spring, and the medders 
mowed in summer, and the cider made, and the com 
husked, and the apples got in the fall ; and the doctor, 


58 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


he hedn’t nothin’ to do but jest sit stock still a medi 
tatin’ on Jerusalem and Jericho and them things that 
ministers think about. But Lordy massy ! he didn’t 
know nothin’ about where any thing he eat or drunk 
or wore come from or went to : his wife jest led 
him ’round in temporal things and took care on khn 
like a baby. 

“Wal, to be sure, Mis’ Carry 1 looked up to him 
in spirituals, and thought all the world on him ; for 
there warn’t a smarter minister no where ’round. 
Why, when he preached on decrees and election, 
they used to come clear over from South Parish, and 
West Sherburne, and Old Town to hear him ; and 
there was sicli a row o’ waggins tied along by the 
meetin’-house that the stables was all full, and all 
the hitchin’-posts was full clean up to the tavern, so 
that folks said the doctor made the town look like a 
gineral trainin’-day a Sunday. 

“ He was gret on texts, the doctor was. When 
he hed a p’int to prove, he’d jest go thro’ the Bible, 
and drive all the texts ahead o’ him like a flock o’ 
sheep ; and then, if there was a text that seemed 
agin him, why, he’d come out with his Greek and 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


59 


Hebrew, and kind o’ chase it ’round a spell, jest as ye 
6ee a fellar chase a contrary bell-wether, and make 
him jump the fence arter the rest. I tell you, there 
wa’n’t no text in the Bible that could stand agin the 
doctor when his blood was up. The year arter the 
doctor was app’inted to preach the ’lection sermon 
in Boston, he made such a figger that the Brattle- 
street Church sent a committee right down to see if 
they couldn’t get him to Boston ; and then the Sher- 
burne folks, they up and raised his salary ; ye see, 
there ain’t nothin’ wakes folks up like somebody 
else’s wantin’ what you’ve got. Wal, that fall they 
made him a Doctor o’ Divinity at Cambridge College, 
and so they sot more by him than ever. Wal, you 
see, the doctor, of course he felt kind o’ lonesome 
and afflicted when Mis’ Carryl was gone ; but railly 
and truly, Huldy was so up to every thing about 
house, that the doctor didn’t miss nothin’ in a tem- 
poral way. His shirt-bosoms was pleated finer 
than they ever was, and them ruffles ’round his 
wrists was kep’ like the driven snow ; and there 
warn’t a brack in his silk stockin’s, and his shoe 
buckles was kep’ polished up, and his coats brushed ; 


60 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


and then there warn’t no bread and biscuit like 
Huldy’s ; and her butter was like solid lumps o’ gold ; 
and there wern’t no pies to equal hers ; and so the 
doctor never felt the loss o’ Miss Carryl at table. 
Then there was Huldy allers oppisite to him, with 
her blue eyes and her cheeks like two fresh peaches. 
She was kind o’ pleasant to look at ; and the more the 
doctor looked at her the better he liked her ; and so 
things seemed to be goin’ on quite quiet and com- 
fortable ef it hadn’t been that Mis’ Pipperidge and 
Mis’ Deakin Blodgett and Mis’ Sawin got their 
heads together a talkin’ about things. 

“ 4 Poor man,’ says Mis’ Pipperidge, ‘what can that 
child that he’s got there do towards takin’ the care 
of all that place ? It takes a mature woman,’ she 
says, 4 to tread in Mis’ Carryl’s shoes.’ 

44 4 That it does,’ said Mis’ Blodgett ; 4 and, when 
things once get to runnin’ down hill, there ain’t no 
stoppin’ on ’em,’ says she. 

44 Then Mis’ Sawin she took it up. (Ye see, Mis’ 
Sawin used to go out to dress-makin’, and was sort o’ 
jealous, ’cause folks sot more by Huldy than they 
did by her). 4 Well,’ says she, 4 Huldy Peters is 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


Cl 


well enough at her trade. I never denied that, though 
I do say I never did believe in her way o’ makin’ but- 
ton-holes ; and I must say, if ’twas the dearest friend 
I hed, that I thought Huldy tryin’ to fit Mis’ Kit- 
tridge’s plumb-colored silk was a clear piece o’ pre- 
sumption ; the silk was jist spiled, so ’twarn’t fit to 
come into the meetin’-house. I must say, Huldy’s a 
gal that’s always too ventersome about takin’ ’spon- 
sibilities she don’t know nothin’ about.’ 

“ 4 Of course she don’t,’ said Mis’ Deakin Blodgett. 
‘ What does she know about all the lookin’ and see- 
in’ to that there ought to be in guidin’ the minister’s 
house. Huldy’s well meanin’, and she’s good at her 
work, and good in the singers’ seat ; but Lordy massy ! 
she hain’t got no experience. Parson Carryl ought 
to have an experienced woman to keep house for him. 
There’s the spring house-cleanin’ and the fall house- 
cleanin’ to be seen to, and the things to be put 
away from the moths ; and then the gettin’ ready 
for the association and all the ministers’ meetin’s ; 
and the makin’ the soap and the candles, and settin’ 
the hens and turkeys, watchin’ the calves, and seein’ 
after the hired men and the garden ; and there 


02 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


that ’are blessed man jist sets there at home as serene, 
and has nobody ’round but that ’are gal, and don’t 
even know how things must be a runnin’ to waste ! ’ 

“ Wal, the upshot on’t was, they fussed and fuzzled 
and wuzzled till they’d drinked up all the tea in the tea- 
pot ; and then they went down and called on the par- 
son, and wuzzled him all up talkin’ about this, that, 
and t’other that wanted lookin’ to, and that it was no 
way to leave every thing to a young chit like Huldy, 
and that he ought to be lookin’ about for an experi- 
enced woman. The parson he thanked ’em kindly, 
and said he believed their motives was good, but he 
didn’t go no further. He didn’t ask Mis’ Pipperidge 
to come and stay there and help him, nor nothin’ o’ 
that kind ; but he said he’d attend to matters himself. 
The fact was, the parson had got such a likin’ for 
havin’ Huldy ’round, that he couldn’t think o’ such a 
thing as swappin’ her off for the Widder Pipperidge. 

“ But he thought to himself, ‘ Huldy is a good girl ; 
but I oughtn’t to be a leavin’ every thing to her, — it’s 
too hard on her. I ought to be instructin’ and guidin’ 
and helpin’ of her ; ’cause ’tain’t everybody could be 
expected to know and do what Mis’ Carryl did ; ’ and 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


63 


so at it he went ; and Lordy massy ! didn’t Huldy hey 
a time on’t when the minister began to come out of 
his study, and want to tew ’round and see to things ? 
Huldy, you see, thought all the world of the minis- 
ter, and she was ’most afraid to laugh ; but she told 
me she couldn’t, for the life of her, help it when his 
back was turned, for he wuzzled things up in the 
most singular way. But Huldy she’d jest say 4 Yes, 
sir,’ and get him off into his study, and go on her 
own way. 

44 4 Huldy,’ says the minister one day , 4 you ain’t ex- 
perienced out doors ; and, when you want to know 
any thing, you must come to me.’ 

44 4 Yes, sir,’ says Huldy. 

44 4 How, Huldy,’ says the parson , 4 you must be sure 
to save the turkey-eggs, so that we can have a lot of 
turkeys for Thanksgiving.’ 

44 4 Yes, sir,’ says Huldy ; and she opened the pantry- 
door, and showed him a nice dishful she’d been a sav- 
in’ up. Wal, the very next day the parson’s hen-tur- 
key was found killed up to old Jim Scroggs’s barn. 
Folks said Scroggs killed it ; though Scroggs, he stood 
to it he didn’t : at any rate, the Scroggses, they made 


64 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


a meal on’t i and Huldy, she felt bad about it ’cause 
she’d set her heart on raisin’ the turkeys ; and says 
she, 4 Oh, dear ! I don’t know what I shall do. I was 
just ready to set her.’ 

44 4 Do, Huldy ? ’ says the parson : 4 why, there’s the 
other turkey, out there by the door ; and a fine bird, 
too, he is.’ 

Sure enough, there was the old tom-turkey a 
struttin’ and a sidlin’ and a quitterin,’ and a floutin’ 
his tail-feathers in the sun, like a lively young wid- 
ower, all ready to begin life over agin. 

44 4 But,’ says Huldy, 4 you know he can’t set on 
eggs.’ 

44 4 He can’t? I’d like to know why,’ says the parson. 
4 He shall set on eggs, and hatch ’em too.’ 

44 4 O doctor ! ’ says Huldy, all in a tremble ; ’cause, 
you know, she didn’t want to contradict the minister, 
and she was afraid she should laugh, — 4 1 never 
heard that a tom-turkey would set on eggs.’ 

44 4 Why, they ought to,’ said the parson, getting 
quite ’arnest : 4 what else be they good for ? you 
just bring out the eggs, now, and put ’em in the nest, 
and I’ll make him set on ’em.’ 






































































































































































































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“ Huldy came behind \ jist chokin' with laugh .' 1 ' 1 — Page 65. 


THE MINISTER'S HOUSEKEEPER. 


65 


“ So Huldy she thought there wern’tno way to con- 
vince him but to let him try : so she took the eggs 
out, and fixed ’em all nice in the nest ; and then she 
come back and found old Tom a skirmishin’ with the 
parson pretty lively, I tell ye. Ye see, old Tom he 
didn’t take the idee at all ; and he flopped and gobbled, 
and fit the parson ; and the parson’s wig got ’round 
so that his cue stuck straight out over his ear, but 
he’d got his blood up. Ye see, the old doctor was 
used to carryin’ his p’ints o’ doctrine ; and he hadn’t 
fit the Arminians and Socinians to be beat by a tom- 
turkey ; so finally he made a dive, and ketched him 
by the neck in spite o’ his floppin’, and stroked him 
down, and put Huldy’s apron ’round him. 

“ ‘ There, Huldy,’ he says, quite red in the face, 
‘ we’ve got him now ; ’ and he travelled off to the 
barn with him as lively as a cricket. 

“ Huldy came behind jist chokin’ with laugh, and 
afraid the minister would look ’round and see her. 

“ 4 Now, Huldy, we’ll crook his legs, and set him 
down,’ says the parson, when they got him to the 
nest : 4 you see he is getting quiet, and he’ll set there 
all right.’ 


66 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“And the parson, he sot him down ; and old Tom he 
sot there solemn enough, and held his head down all 
droopin’, lookin’ like a rail pious old cock, as long as 
the parson sot by him. 

44 4 There : you see how still he sets,’ says the par- 
son to Huldy. 

44 Huldy was ’most dyin’ for fear she should laugh. 
‘ I’m afraid he’ll get up,’ says she, 4 when you 
do.’ 

44 4 Oh, no, he won’t ! ’ says the parson, quite confident. 
4 There, there,’ says he, layin’ his hands on him, as if 
pronouncin’ a blessin’. But when the parson riz up, 
old Tom he riz up too, and began to march over the 
eggs. 

44 4 Stop, now ! ’ says the parson. 4 I’ll make him get 
down agin : hand me that corn-basket ; we’ll put 
that over him.’ 

44 So he crooked old Tom’s legs, and got him down 
agin; and they put the corn-basket over him, and 
then they both stood and waited. 

44 4 That’ll do the thing, Huldy,’ said the parson. 

44 4 1 don’t know about it,’ says Huldy. 

44 4 Oh, yes, it will, child ! I understand,’ says he. 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


67 


“ Just as he spoke, the basket riz right up and stood, 
and they could see old Tom’s long legs. 

“ 4 I’ll make him stay down, confound him,’ says 
the parson ; for, ye see, parsons is men, like the rest 
on us, and the doctor had got his spunk up. 

44 4 You jist hold him a minute, and I’ll get some- 
thing that’ll make him stay, I guess;’ and out he 
went to the fence, and brought in a long, thin, flat 
stone, and laid it on old Tom’s back. 

“ Old Tom he wilted down considerable under 
this, and looked railly as if he was goin’ to give in. 
He staid still there a good long spell, and the min- 
ister and Huldy left him there and come up to the 
house ; but they hadn’t more than got in the door 
before they see old Tom a hippin’ along, as high- 
steppin’ as ever, sayin’ 4 Talk ! talk ! and quitter ! 
quitter ! ’ and struttin’ and gobblin’ as if he’d come 
through the Red Sea, and got the victory. 

44 4 Oh, my eggs ! ’ says Huldy. 4 I’m afraid he’s 
smashed ’em ! ’ 

44 And sure enough, there they was, smashed flat 
enough under the stone. 

44 4 I’ll have him killed,’ said the parson: 4 we 
won’t have such a critter ’round.’ 


68 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ But the parson, he slep’ on’t, and then didn’t do 
it : he only come out next Sunday with a tip-top 
sermon on the 4 ’Riginal Cuss ’ that was pronounced 
on things in gineral, when Adam fell, and showed 
how every thing was allowed to go contrary ever 
since. There was pig-weed, and pusley, and Cana- 
dy thistles, cut-worms, and bag-worms, and canker- 
worms, to say nothin’ of rattlesnakes. The doctor 
made it very impressive and sort o’ improvin’ ; but 
Huldy, she told me, goin’ home, that she hardly 
could keep from laughin’ two or three times in the 
sermon when she thought of old Tom a standin’ up 
with the corn-basket on his back. 

“ Wal, next week Huldy she jist borrowed the min- 
ister’s horse and side-saddle, and rode over to South 
Parish to her Aunt Bascome’s, — Widder Bascome’s, 
you know, that lives there by the trout-brook, — and 
got a lot o’ turkey-eggs o’ her, and come back and set 
a hen on ’em, and said nothin’ ; and in good time there 
was as nice a lot o’ turkey-chicks as ever ye see. 

“ Huldy never said a word to the minister about his 
experiment, and he never said a word to her ; but he 
sort o’ kep’ more to his books, and didn’t take it on 
him to advise so much. 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


69 


“ But not long arter he took it into his head that 
Huldy ought to have a pig to be a fattin’ with the 
buttermilk. Mis’ Pipperidge set him up to it ; and 
jist then old Tim Bigelow, out to Juniper Hill, told 
him if he’d call over he’d give him a little pig. 

“ So he sent for a man, and told him to build a pig- 
pen right out by the well, and have it all ready when 
he came home with his pig. 

“ Huldy she said she wished he might put a curb 
round the well out there, because in the dark, some- 
times, a body might stumble into it ; and the parson, 
he told him he might do that. 

“ Wal, old Aikin, the carpenter, he didn’t come till 
most the middle of the arternoon ; and then he sort o’ 
idled, so that he didn’t get up the well-curb till sun- 
down ; and then he went off and said he’d come and 
do the pig-pen next day. 

“ Wal, arter dark, Parson Carryl he driv into the 
yard, full chizel, with his pig. He’d tied up his 
mouth to keep him from squeelin’ ; and he see what 
he thought was the pig-pen, — he was rather near- 
sighted, — and so he ran and threw piggy over ; and 
down he dropped into the water, and the minister 


70 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


put out his horse and pranced off into the house 
quite delighted. 

“ 4 There, Huldy, I’ve got you a nice little pig.’ 

44 4 Dear me ! ’ says Huldy : 4 where have you put 
him?’ 

44 4 Why, out there in the pig-pen, to be sure.’ 

44 4 Oh, dear me ! ’ says Huldy : 4 that’s the well- 
curb ; there ain’t no pig-pen built,’ says she. 

44 4 Lordy massy ! ’ says the parson : 4 then I’ve 
thrown the pig in the well ! ’ 

44 Wal, Huldy she worked and worked, and finally 
she fished piggy out in the bucket, but he was dead 
as a door-nail ; and she got him out o’ the way 
quietly, and didn’t say much ; and the parson, he took 
to a great Hebrew book in his study ; and says he, 
4 Huldy, I ain’t much in temporals,’ says he. Huldy 
says she kind o’ felt her heart go out to him, he was 
so sort o’ meek and helpless and larned ; and says she, 
4 Wal, Parson Carryl, don’t trouble your head no 
more about it ; I’ll see to things ; ’ and sure enough, 
a week arter there was a nice pen, all ship-shape, and 
two little white pigs that Huldy bought with the 
money for the butter she sold at the store. 



u I've thrown the fig in the well." — Page 70 






THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


71 


Wal, Huldy,’ said the parson, ‘you are a most 
amazin’ child: you don’t say nothin’, but you do 
more than most folks.’ 

“ Arter that the parson set sich store by Huldy that 
he come to her and asked her about every thing, and 
it was amazin’ how every thing she put her hand to 
prospered. Huldy planted marigolds and larkspurs, 
pinks and carnations, all up and down the path to the 
front door, and trained up mornin’ glories and scar- 
let-runners round the windows. And she was always 
a gettin’ a root here, and a sprig there, and a seed 
from somebody else : for Huldy was one o’ them that 
has the gift, so that ef you jist give ’em the leastest 
sprig of any thing they make a great bush out of it 
right away ; so that in six months Huldy had roses 
and geraniums and lilies, sich as it would a took a 
gardener to raise. The parson, he took no notice at 
fust ; but when the yard was all ablaze with flowers he 
used to come and stand in a kind o’ maze at the front 
door, and say, ‘ Beautiful, beautiful : why, Huldy, 
I never see any thing like it.’ And then when her 
work was done arternoons, Huldy would sit with her 
sewin’ in the porch, and sing and trill away till she’d 


72 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


draw the meadow-larks and the bobolinks, and the 
orioles to answer her, and the great big elm-tree 
overhead would get perfectly rackety with the birds ; 
and the parson, settin’ there in his study, would git 
to kind o’ dreamin’ about the angels, and golden 
harps, and the New Jerusalem ; but he wouldn’t 
speak a word, ’cause Huldy she was jist like them 
wood-thrushes, she never could sing so well when 
she thought folks was hearin’. Folks noticed, about 
this time, that the parson’s sermons got to be like 
Aaron’s rod, that budded and blossomed : there was 
things in ’em about flowers and birds, and more ’spe- 
cial about the music o’ heaven. And Huldy she 
noticed, that ef there was a hymn run in her head 
while she was ’round a workin’ the minister was 
sure to give it out next Sunday. You see, Huldy 
was jist like a bee : she always sung when she was 
workin’, and you could hear her trillin’, now down 
in the corn-patch, while she was pickin’ the corn ; 
and now in the buttery, while she was workin’ the 
butter; and now she’d go singin’ down cellar, and 
then she’d be singin’ up over head, so that she 
seemed to fill a house chock full o’ music. 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


73 


“ Huldy was so sort o’ chipper and fair spoken, that 
she got the hired men all under her thumb : they 
come to her and took her orders jist as meek as so 
many calves ; and she traded at the store, and kep’ 
the accounts, and she hed her eyes everywhere, and 
tied up all the ends so tight that there want no get- 
tin’ ’round her. She wouldn’t let nobody put nothin’ 
off on Parson Carryl, ’cause he was a minister. Hul- 
dy was allers up to anybody that wanted to make a 
hard bargain ; and, afore he knew jist what he was 
about, she’d got the best end of it, and everybody 
said that Huldy was the most capable gal that they’d 
ever traded with. 

“ Wal, come to the meetin’ of the Association, Mis’ 
Deakin Blodgett and Mis’ Pipperidge come callin’ up 
to the parson’s, all in a stew, and offerin’ their ser- 
vices to get the house ready ; but the doctor, he jist 
thanked ’em quite quiet, and turned ’em over to Hul- 
dy; and Huldy she told ’em that she’d got every 
thing ready, and showed ’em her pantries, and her 
cakes and her pies and her puddin’s, and took ’em 
all over the house ; and they went peekin’ and pokin’, 
openin’ cupboard-doors, and lookin’ into drawers ; and 

7 


74 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


they couldn’t find so much as a thread out o’ the 
way, from garret to cellar, and so they went off quite 
discontented. Arter that the women set a new 
trouble a brewin’. Then they begun to talk that it 
was a year now since Mis’ Carryl died ; and it r’ally 
wasn’t proper such a young gal to be stayin’ there, 
who everybody could see was a settin’ her cap for 
the minister. 

“ Mis’ Pipperidge said, that, so long as she looked 
on Huldy as the hired gal, she hadn’t thought much 
about it ; but Huldy was railly takin’ on airs as an 
equal, and appearin’ as mistress o’ the house in a 
way that would make talk if it went on. And Mis’ 
Pipperidge she driv ’round up to Deakin Abner 
Snow’s, and down to Mis’ ’Lijah Perry’s, and asked 
them if they wasn’t afraid that the way the parson 
and Huldy was a goin’ on might make talk. And 
they said they hadn’t thought on’t before, but now, 
come to think on’t, they was sure it would ; and they 
all went and talked with somebody else, and asked 
them if they didn’t think it would make talk. So 
come Sunday, between meetin’s there warn’t noth- 
in’ else talked about ; and Huldy saw folks a noddin’ 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


75 


and a winkin’, and a lookin’ arter her, and she begun 
to feel drefful sort o’ disagreeable. Finally Mis’ 
Sawin she says to her, ‘ My dear, didn’t you, never 
think folk would talk about you and the minister ? ’ 

44 4 No : why should they ? ’ says Huldy, quite in- 
nocent. 

41 Wal, dear,’ says she, 4 1 think it’s a shame ; but 
they say you’re tryin’ to catch him, and that it’s so 
bold and improper for you to be courtin’ of him right 
in his own house, — you know folks will talk, — I 
thought I’d tell you ’cause I think so much of you,’ 
says she. 

44 Huldy was a gal of spirit, and she despised the 
talk, but it made her drefful uncomfortable ; and 
when she got home at night she sat down in the mor- 
nin’-glory porch, quite quiet, and didn’t sing a word. 

44 The minister he had heard the same thing from 
one of his deakins that day ; and, when he saw Huldy 
so kind o’ silent, he says to her, 4 Why don’t you 
sing, my child ? ’ 

44 He hed a pleasant sort o’ way with him, the minis- 
ter had, and Huldy had got to likin’ to be with him , 
and it all come over her that perhaps she ought to go 


76 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


away ; and her throat kind o’ filled up so she couldn’t 
hardly speak ; and, says she, 4 I can’t sing to-night.’ 

“ Says he, 4 You don’t know how much good you’re 
singin’ has done me, nor how much good you have 
done me in all ways, Huldy. I wish I knew how to 
show my gratitude.’ 

“ 4 O sir ! ’ says Huldy, 4 is it improper for me to be 
here ? ’ 

44 4 No, dear,’ says the minister, 4 but ill-natured 
folks will talk ; but there is one way we can stop it, 
Huldy — if you will marry me. You’ll make me 
very happy, and I’ll do all I can to make you happy. 
Will you?’ 

44 Wal, Huldy never told me jist what she said to 
the minister, — gals never does give you the particu- 
lars of them ’are things jist as you’d like ’em, — only I 
know the upshot and the hull on’t was, that Huldy 
she did a consid’able lot o’ clear starchin’ and ironin’ 
the next two days ; and the Friday o’ next week the 
minister and she rode over together to Dr. Lothrop’s 
in Old Town ; and the doctor, he jist made ’em man 
and wife, 4 spite of envy of the Jews,’ as the hymn 
says. Wal, you’d better believe there was a starin’ 


THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER. 


77 


and a wonderin’ next Sunday mornin’ when the sec- 
ond bell was a tollin’, and the minister walked up the 
broad aisle with Huldy, all in white, arm in arm 
with him, and he opened the minister’s pew, and 
handed her in as if she was a princess ; for, you see, 
Parson Carryl come of a good family, and was a 
born gentleman, and had a sort o’ grand way o’ bein’ 
polite to women-folks. Wal, I guess there was a 
rus’lin’ among the bunnets. Mis’ Pipperidge gin a 
great bounce, like corn poppin’ on a shovel, and her 
eyes glared through her glasses at Huldy as if they’d 
a sot her afire ; and everybody in the meetin’ house 
was a starin’, I tell yew. But the}' couldn’t none of 
’em say nothin’ agin Huldy’s looks ; for there wa’n’t 
a crimp nor a frill about her that wa’n’t jis’ so; and 
her frock was white as the driven snow, and she had 
her bunnet all trimmed up with white ribbins ; and 
all the fellows said the old doctor had stole a march, 
and got the handsomest gal in the parish. 

“Wal, after meetin’ they all come ’round the par- 
son and Huldy at the door, shakin’ hands and laugh- 
in’ ; for by that time they was about agreed that 
they’d got to let putty well alone. 


78 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ ‘ Why, Parson Carryl,’ says Mis’ Deakin Blod- 
gett, ‘how you’ve come it over us.’ 

“ 4 Yes,’ says the parson, with a kind o’ twinkle in 
his eye. 4 1 thought,’ says he, 4 as folks wanted to 
talk about Huldy and me, I’d give ’em somethin’ 
wuth talkin’ about.’ ” 



THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


ORDY massy! Stick yer hat into the 
nor’east, Horace, and see ’f ye can’t 
stop out this ’ere wind. I’m e’eny 
most used up with it.” 

So spake Sam Lawson, contemplating 
mournfully a new broad-brimmed straw 
hat in which my soul was rejoicing. 

It was the dripping end of a sour November after- 
noon, which closed up a “spell o’ weather” that had 
been steadily driving wind and rain for a week past ; 
and we boys sought the shelter and solace of his 
shop, and, opening the door, let in the wind afore- 
said. 

Sam had been all day in one of his periodical fits 
of desperate industry. The smoke and sparks had 

79 



80 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


been seen flying out of his shop-chimney in a frantic 
manner ; and the blows of his hammer had resounded 
with a sort of feverish persistence, intermingled with 
a doleful wailing of psalm-tunes of the most lugubri- 
ous description. 

These fits of industry on Sam’s part were an afflic- 
tion to us boys, especially when they happened to 
come on Saturday : for Sam was as much a part of 
our Saturday-afternoon calculations as if we had a 
regular deed of property in him ; and we had been 
all day hanging round his shop, looking in from time 
to time, in the vague hope that he would propose 
something to brighten up the dreary monotony of a 
holiday in which it had been impossible to go any- 
where or do any thing. 

44 Sam, ain’t you coming over to tell us some 
stories to-night ? ” 

44 Bless your soul and body, boys ! life ain’t made 
to be spent tellin’ stories. Why, I shall hev to be 
up here workin’ till arter twelve o’clock,” said Sam, 
who was suddenly possessed with a spirit of the 
most austere diligence. 44 Here I be up to my neck 
in work, — things kind o’ cornin’ in a heap together. 


THE WIDOW'S BANDBOX. 


81 


There’s Mis’ Cap’n Broad’s andirons, she sent word 
she must have ’em to-night ; and there’s Lady 
Lothrop, she wants her warmin’-pan right off ; 
they can’t non’ on ’em wait a minit longer. I’ve 
ben a drivin’ and workin’ all day like a nigger-slave. 
Then there was Jeduth Pettybone, he brought down 
them colts to-day, and I worked the biggest part o’ 
the mornin’ shoein’ on ’em ; and then Jeduth he said 
he couldn’t make change to pay me, so there wa’n’t 
nothin’ cornin’ in for ’t ; and then Hepsy she kep’ a 
jawin’ at me all dinner-time ’bout that. Why, I 
warn’t to blame now, was I ? I can’t make every- 
body do jest right and pay regular, can I ? So ye 
see it goes, boys, gettin’ yer bread by the sweat o’ 
your brow ; and sometimes sweatin’ and not gettin’ 
yer bread. That ’ere’s what I call the cuss , the 
’riginal cuss, that come on man for hearkenin’ to the 
voice o’ his wife, — that ’ere was what did it. It al- 
ters kind o’ riles me up with Mother Eve when I 
think on’t. The women hain’t no bisness to fret as 
they do, ’cause they sot this ’ere state o’ things goin’ 
in the fust place.” 

“ But, Sam, Aunt Lois and Aunt Nabby are both 


82 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


going over to Mis’ Mehitabel’s to tea. Now, you 
mst come over and eat supper with us and tell us a 
ory, do.” 

“ Gone out to tea, be they ? ” said Sam, relaxing 
ls hammering, with a brightening gleam stealing 
gradually across his lanky visage. “Wal, that ’ere 
looks like a providential openin’, to be sure. Wal, I 
guess I’ll come. What’s the use o’ never havin’ a 
good time ? Ef you work yourself up into shoe- 
strings you don’t get no thanks for it, and things in 
this world’s ’bout as broad as they is long : the wo- 
men ’ll scold, turn ’em which way ye will. A good 
mug o’ cider and some cold victuals over to the Dea- 
kin’s ’ll land o’ comfort a feller up ; and your granny 
she’s sort o’ merciful, she don’t rub it into a fellow 
all the time like Miss Lois.” 

“ Now, let’s see, boj^s,” said Sam, when a comfort- 
able meal of pork and beans had been disposed of, 
and a mug of cider was set ’ >wn before the fire to 
warm. “ I s’pect ye’ll like to hear a Down-East 
story to-night.” 

Of course we did, and tumbled over each other in 
our eagerness to get the nearest place to the narrator. 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


83 


Sam’s method of telling a story was as leisurely as 
that of some modern novel-writers. He would take 
his time for it, and proceed by easy stages. It was 
like the course of a dreamy, slow-moving river 
through a tangled meadow-flat, — not a rush nor a 
bush but was reflected in it ; in short, Sam gave his 
philosophy of matters and things in general as he 
went along, and was especially careful to impress an 
edifying moral. 

“ Wal, ye see, boys, ye know I was bom down to 
Newport, — there where it’s all ships and shipping, 
and sich. My old mother she kep’ a boardin’-house 
for sailors down there. Wal, ye see, I rolled and 
tumbled round the world pretty consid’able afore I 
got settled down here in Oldtown. 

“ Ye see, my mother she wanted to bind me out to 
a blacksmith, but I kind o’ sort o’ didn’t seem to take 
to it. It was kind o’ hard work, and boys is apt to 
want to take life easy 0 J Wal, I used to run off to the 
sea-shore, and lie stretched out on them rocks there, 
and look off on to the water ; and it did use to look 
so sort o’ blue and peaceful, and the ships come a 
sailin’ in and out so sort o’ easy and natural, that I 


84 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


felt as if that are’d be jest the easiest kind o’ life a 
fellow could have. All he had to do was to get 
aboard one o’ them ships, and be off seekin’ his 
fortin at t’other end o’ the rainbow, where gold 
grows on bushes and there’s valleys o’ diamonds. 

“ So, nothin’ would do but I gin my old mother 
the slip ; and away I went to sea, with my duds tied 
up in a han’kercher. 

“ I tell ye what, boys, ef ye want to find an easy 
life, don’t ye never go to sea. I tell ye, life on ship- 
board ain’t what it looks to be on shore. I hadn’t 
been aboard more’n three hours afore I was the sick- 
est critter that ever ye did see ; and I tell you, I 
didn’t get no kind o’ compassion. Cap’ns and mates | 
they allers thinks boys hain’t no kind o’ business to j 
have no bowels nor nothin’, and they p^ J^ on ’em 
sick or well. It’s jest a kick here, and a cuff there, 
and a twitch by the ear in t’other place ; one a I 
shovin’ on ’em this way, and another hittin’ on ’em a 
clip, and all growlin’ from mornin’ to night. I be- 1 
lieve the way my ears got so long was bein’ hauled 
out o’ my berth by ’em : that ’are’s a sailor’s regular 
way o’ wakin’ up a boy. 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


85 


“ Wal, by time I got to the Penobscot country, all 
I wanted to know was how to get back agin. That 
’are’s jest the way folks go all their lives, boys. It’s 
all fuss, fuss, and stew, stew, till ye get somewhere ; 
and then it’s fuss, fuss, and stew, stew, to get back 
agin ; jump here and scratch yer eyes out, and jump 
there and scratch ’em in agin, — that ’are’s life. 

“ Wal, I kind o’ poked round in Penobscot coun- 
try till I got a berth on 4 The Brilliant ’ that was lyin’ 
at Camden, goin’ to sail to Boston. 

“Ye see, ‘ The Brilliant ’ she was a tight little sloop 
in the government service : ’twas in the war-times, 
ye see, and Commodore Tucker that is now (he was 
Cap’n Tucker then), he had the command on her, — 
used to run up and down all the coast takin’ observa- 
tions o’ ,dL ‘ British, and keepin’ his eye out on ’em, 
and givin’ on ’em a nip here and a clip there,’ cordin’ 
as he got a good chance. Why, your grand’ther 
knew old Commodore Tucker. It was he that took 
Dr. Franklin over Minister, to France, and dodged 
all the British vessels, right in the middle o’ the war. 
I tell you that ’are was like runnin’ through the 
drops in a thunder-shower. He got chased by the 


86 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


British ships pretty consid’able, but he was too spry 
for ’em. Arter the war was over, Commodore 
Tucker took over John Adams, our fust Minister to 
England. A drefful smart man the Commodore was, 
but he most like to ’a’ ben took in this ’ere time I’m 
a tellin’ ye about, and all ’cause he was sort o’ soft- 
hearted to the women. Tom Toothacre told me the 
story. Tom he was the one that got me the berth 
on the ship. Ye see, I used to know Tom at New- 
port ; and once when he took sick there my mother 
nussed him up, and that was why Tom was friends 
with me and got me the berth, and kep’ me warm in 
it too. Tom he was one of your rael Maine boys, 
that’s hatched out, so to speak, in water like ducks. 
He was born away down there on Harpswell P’int ; 
and they say, if ye throw one o’ them Harpswell babies 
into the sea, he’ll take to it nateral, and swim like a 
cork: ef they hit their heads agin a rock it only 
dents the rock, but don’t hurt the baby. Tom he 
was a great character on the ship. He could see 
further, and knew more ’bout wind and water, than 
most folks : the officers took Tom’s judgment, and 
the men all went by his say. My mother she chalked 


THE WIDOW'S BANDBOX. 


87 


a streak o’ good luck for me when she nussed up 
Tom. 

“ Wal, we wus a lyin’ at Camden there, one arter- 
noon, goin’ to sail for Boston that night. It was a 
sort o’ soft, pleasant arternoon, kind o’ still, and 
there wa’n’t nothin’ a goin’ on but jest the hens a 
craw-crawin’, and a histin’ up one foot, and holdin’ it 
a spell ’cause they didn’t know when to set it down, 
and the geese a sissin’ and a pickin’ at the grass. Ye 
see, Camden wasn’t nothin’ of a place, — ’twas jest 
as if somebody had emptied out a pocketful o’ houses 
and forgot ’em. There wer’n’t nothin’ a stirrin’ or 
goin’ on ; and so we was all took aback, when ’bout 
four o’clock in the arternoon there come a boat 
alongside, with a tall, elegant lady in it, all dressed in 
deep mournin’. She rared up sort o’ princess-like, 
and come aboard our ship, and wanted to speak to 
Cap’n Tucker. Where she come from, or what she 
wanted, or where she was goin’ to, we none on us 
knew : she kep’ her veil down so we couldn’t get 
sight o’ her face. All was, she must see Cap’n 
Tucker alone right away. 

“ Wal, Cap’n Tucker he was like the generality 


88 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


o’ cap’ns. He was up to ’bout every thing that any 
man could do, but it was pretty easy for a woman to 
come it over him. Ye see, cap’ns, they don’t see 
women as men do ashore. They don’t have enough 
of ’em to get tired on ’em ; and every woman’s an 
angel to a sea-cap’n. Anyway, the cap’n he took 
her into his cabin, and he sot her a chair, and was 
her humble servant to command, and what would 
she have of him ? And we was all a winkin’, and a 
nudgin’ each other, and a peekin’ to see what was to 
come o’ it. And she see it ; and so she asks, in a sort 
o’ princess’ way, to speak to the cap’n alone ; and so 
the doors was shut, and we was left to our own ideas, 
and a wonderin’ what it was all to be about. 

“ Wal, you see, it come out arterwards all about 
what went on ; and things went this way. Jest as 
soon as the doors was shut, and she was left alone 
with the cap’n, she busted out a cryin’ and a sobbin’ 
fit to break her heart. 

“ Wal, the cap’n he tried to comfort her up : but 
no, she wouldn’t be comforted, but went on a weepin’ 
and a wailin,’ and a wringin’ on her hands, till the 
poor cap’n’s heart was a’most broke ; for the cap’n 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


89 


was the tenderest-hearted critter that could be, and 
couldn’t bear to see a child or a woman in trouble 
noways. 

“ ‘ O cap’n ! ’ said she, 4 I’m the most unfortunate 
woman. I’m all alone in the world,’ says she, 4 and 
I don’t know what’ll become of me ef you don’t 
keep me,’ says she. 

44 Wal, the cap’n thought it was time to run up his 
colors ; and so says he, 4 Ma’am, I’m a married man, 
and love my wife,’ says he, 4 and so I can feel for all 
women in distress,’ says he. 

44 Oh, well, then ! ’ says she , 4 you can feel for me, and 
know how to pity me. My dear husband’s just died 
suddenly when he was up the river. He was took 
with the fever in the woods. I nussed him day and 
night,’ says she ; 4 but he died there in a mis’able 
little hut far from home and friends,’ says she ; 4 and 
I’ve brought his body down with me, hopin’ Provi- 
dence would open some way to get it back to our 
home in Boston. And now, cap’n, you must help me.’ 

41 Then the cap’n see what she was up to : and he 
hated to do it, and tried to cut her off o’ askin’ ; but 
she wa’n’t to be put off. 


90 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ 4 Now, cap’n,’ says she, 4 ef you’ll take me and 
the body o’ my husband on board to-night, I’d be 
willin’ to reward you to any amount. Money would 
be no object to me,’ says she. 

44 Wal, you see, the cap’n he kind o’ hated to do it ; 
and he hemmed and hawed, and he tried to ’pologize. 
He said ’twas a government vessel, and he didn't 
know as he had a right to use it. He said sailors 
was apt to be superstitious ; and he didn’t want ’em 
to know as there was a corpse on board. 

44 4 Wal,’ says she, 4 why need they know? ’ For, 
you see, she was up to every dodge ; and she said 
she’d come along with it at dusk, in a box, and have 
it just carried to a state-room, and he needn’t tell 
nobody what it was. 

44 Wal, Cap’n Tucker he hung off; and he tried his 
best to persuade her to have a funeral, all quiet, 
there at Camden. He promised to get a minister, 
and ’tend to it, and wait a day till it was all over, 
and then take her on to Boston free gratis. But 
’twas all no go. She wouldn’t hear a word to ’t. 
And she reeled off the talk to him by the yard. 
And, when talk failed, she took to her water-works 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


91 


again, till finally the cap’n said his resolution was 
clean washed away, and he jest give up hook and 
line ; and so ’twas all settled and arranged, that, 
when evening come, she was to be alongside with her 
boat, and took aboard. 

44 When she come out o’ the cap’n’s room to go off, 
I see Tom Toothacre a watchin’ on her. He stood 
there by the railin’s a shavin’ up a plug o’ baccy to 
put in his pipe. He didn’t say a word ; but he sort o’ 
took the measure o’ that ’are woman with his eye, 
and kept a follerin’ on her. 

44 She had a fine sort o’ lively look, carried her 
head up and shoulders back, and stepped as if she 
had steel springs in her heels. 

“ 4 Wal, Tom, what do ye say to her ? ’ says Ben 
Bowdin. 

44 4 1 don’t say nothin’,’ says Tom, and he lit his 
pipe ; ’tain’t my busness,’ says he. 

44 4 Wal, what do you think ? ’ says Ben. Tom gin 
a hist to his trousers. 

44 4 My thoughts is my own,’ says he ; 4 and I cal- 
culate to keep ’em to myself,’ says he. And then he 
jest walked to the side of the vessel, and watched the 


92 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


woman a gettin’ ashore. There was a queer kind o’ 
look in Tom’s eye. 

“ Wal, the cap’n he was drefful sort o’ oneasy 
arter she was gone. He had a long talk in the cabin 
with Mr. More, the fust officer ; and there was a sort 
o’ stir aboard as if somethin’ was a goin’ to happen, 
we couldn’t jest say what it was. 

“ Sometimes it seems as if, when things is goin’ to 
happen, a body kind o’ feels ’em cornin’ in the air. 
We boys was all that way : o’ course we didn’t 
know nothin’ ’bout what the woman wanted, or what 
she come for, or whether she was cornin’ agin ; ’n 
fact, we didn’t know nothin’ about it, and yet we sort 
o’ expected suthin’ to come o’ it ; and suthin’ did 
come, sure enough. 

“ Come on night, jest at dusk, we see a boat corn- 
in’ alongside ; and there, sure enough, was the lady in 
it. 

“ 4 There, she’s cornin’ agin,’ says I to Tom Tooth 
acre. 

“ ‘ Yes, and brought her baggage with her,’ says 
Tom ; and he p’inted down to a long, narrow pine 
box that was in the boat beside her. 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


93 


“Jest then the cap’n called on Mr. More, and he 
called on Tom Toothacre ; and among ’em they low- 
ered a tackle, and swung the box aboard, and put it 
in the state-room right alongside the cap’n’s cabin. 

“ The lady she thanked the cap’n and Mr. 
More, and her voice was jest as sweet as any night- 
ingale ; and she went into the state-room arter they 
put the body in, and was gone ever so long with it. 
The cap’n and Mr. More they stood a whisperin’ to 
each other, and every once in a while they’d kind o’ 
nod at the door where the lady was. 

“ Wal, by and by she come out with her han’ker- 
chief to her eyes, and come on deck, and begun talk- 
in’ to the cap’n and Mr. More, and a wishin’ all 
kinds o’ blessin’s on their heads. 

“ Wal, Tom Toothacre didn’t say a word, good or 
bad ; but he jest kep’ a lookin’ at her, watchin’ her as 
a cat watches a mouse. Finally we up sail, and started 
with a fair breeze. The lady she kep’ a walkin’ up and 
down, up and down, and every time she turned on 
her heel, I saw Tom a lookin’ arter her and kind o’ 
noddin’ to himself. 

“ ‘ What makes you look arter her so, Tom ? ’ says 
I to him. 


94 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ 4 ’Cause I think she wants lookin’ arter,’ says 
Tom. 4 What’s more,’ says he , 4 if the cap’n don’t 
look sharp arter her the devil ’ll have us all afore 
mornin.’ I tell ye, Sam, there’s mischief under them 
petticuts.’ 

44 4 Why, what do ye think ? ’ says I. 

44 4 Think ! I don’t think, I knows ! That ’are’s 
no gal, nor widder neither, if my name’s Tom Tooth- 
acre ! Look at her walk ; look at the way she turns 
on her heel ! I’ve been a watchin’ on her. There 
ain’t no woman livin’ with a step like that ! ’ says he. 

44 4 Wal, who should the critter be, then ? ’ says I. 

44 4 Wal,’ says Tom, 4 ef that ’are ain’t a British 
naval officer, I lose my bet. I’ve been used to the 
ways on ’em, and I knows their build and their step.’ 

44 4 And what do you suppose she’s got in that long 
box ? ’ says I. 

44 4 What has she got?’ says Tom. 4 Wal, folks 
might say none o’ my bisness ; but I s’pects it’ll turn 
out some o’ my bisness, and yourn too, if he don’t 
look sharp arter it, ? says Tom. 4 It’s no good, that 
’are box ain’t.’ 

44 4 Why don’t you speak to Mr. More ? ’ says I. 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


95 


“ 4 Wal, you see she’s a chipperin’ round and a mak- 
in’ herself agreeable to both on ’em, you see ; she 
don’t mean to give nobody any chance fora talk with 
’em ; but I’ve got my eye on her, for all that. You 
see I liain’t no sort o’ disposition to sarve out a 
time on one o’ them British prison-ships,’ says Tom 
Toothacre. 4 It might be almighty handy for them 
British to have 44 The Brilliant ” for a coast- vessel,’ 
says he ; 4 but, ye see, it can’t be spared jest yet. 
So, madam,’ saj^s he, 4 I’ve got my eye on you.’ 

44 Wal, Tom was as good as his word ; for when Mr. 
More came towards him at the wheel, Tom he up 
and says to him, 4 Mr. More,’ says he, 4 that ’are big 
box in the state-room yonder wants lookin’ into.’ 

44 Tom was a sort o’ privileged character, and had 
a way o’ speakin’ up that the officers took in good 
part, ’cause they knew he was a fust-rate hand. 

44 Wal, Mr. More he looks mysterious ; and says he, 
Tom, do the boys know what’s in that ’are box ? ’ 

44 4 1 bet they don’t,’ says Tom. 4 If they had, you 
wouldn’t a got ’em to help it aboard.’ 

44 4 Wal, you see, poor woman,’ says Mr. More to 
Tom, 4 she was so distressed. She wanted to get 


96 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


her husband’s body to Boston ; and there wa’n’t no 
other way, and so the cap’n let it come aboard. 
He didn’t want the boys to suspect what it really 
was.’ 

“ 4 Husband’s body be hanged ! ’ said Tom. ‘ Guess 
that ’are corpse ain’t so dead but what there’ll be a 
resurrection afore mornin’, if it ain’t looked arter,’ 
says he. 

“ 4 Why, what do you mean, Tom ? ’ said Mr. 
More, all in a blue maze. 

44 4 1 mean, that ’are gal that’s ben a switchin’ her 
petticuts up and down our deck ain’t no gal at all. 
That are’s a British officer, Mr. More. You give my 
duty to the cap’n, and tell him to look into his wid- 
der’s bandbox, and see what he’ll find there.’ 

44 Wal, the mate he went and had a talk with the 
cap’n ; and they ’greed between ’em that Mr. More 
was to hold her in talk while the cap’n went and 
took observations in the state-room. 

44 So, down the cap’n goes into the state-room to 
give a look at the box. Wal, he finds the state- 
room door all locked to be sure, and my lady had the 
key in her pocket ; but then the cap’n he had a mas- 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


97 


ter key to it ; and so he puts it in, and opens the door 
quite softly, and begins to take observations. 

“ Sure enough, he finds that the screws had been 
drawed from the top o’ the box, showin’ that the 
widder had been a tinkerin’ on’t when they thought 
she was a cryin’ over it ; and then, lookin’ close, he 
sees a bit o’ twine goin’ from a crack in the box out 
o’ the winder, and up on deck. 

“Wal, the cap’n he kind o’ got in the sperit o’ the 
thing ; and he thought he’d jest let the widder play 
her play out, and see what it would come to. So he 
jest calls Tom Toothacre down to him and whis- 
pered to him. 4 Tom,’ says he, ‘ you jest crawl un- 
der the berth in that ’are state-room, and watch that 
’are box.’ And Tom said he would. 

So Tom creeps under the berth, and lies there 
still as a mouse ; and the cap’n he slips out and turns 
the key in the door, so that when madam comes 
down she shouldn’t s’pect nothin’. 

“ Putty soon, sure enough, Tom heard the lock 
rattle, and the young widder come in ; and then he 
heard a bit o’ conversation between her and the 


corpse. 


98 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


44 4 What time is it ? * come in a kind o’ hoarse 
whisper out o’ the box. 

44 4 Well, ’bout nine o’clock,’ says she. 

44 4 How long afore you’ll let me out ? ’ says he. 

44 4 Oh ! you must have patience,’ says she, 4 till 
they’re all gone off to sleep ; when there ain’t but 
one man up. I can knock him down,’ says she, 4 and 
then I’ll pull the string for you.’ 

44 4 The devil you will, ma’am ! ’ says Tom to him- 
self, under the berth. 

44 4 Well, it’s darned close here,’ says the fellow in 
the box. He didn’t say darned, boys ; but he said 
a wickeder word that I can’t repeat, noways,” said 
Sam, in a parenthesis : 44 these ’ere British officers 
was drefful swearin’ critters. 

44 4 You must have patience a while longer,’ says 
the lady, 4 till I pull the string.’ Tom Toothacre lay 
there on his back a laughin’. 

44 4 Is every thing goin’ on right ? ’ says the man in 
the box. 

44 4 All straight,’ says she : 4 there don’t none of ’em 
suspect.’ 

44 4 You bet,’ says Tom Toothacre, - under the 





“ And gin hurt a regular bear's hug." — Page 99. 



THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


99 


berth ; and he said he had the greatest mind to catch 
the critter by the feet as she was a standin’ there, 
but somehow thought it would be better fun to see 
the thing through ’cording as they’d planned it. 

“ Wal, then she went off switchin’ and mincin’ up 
to the deck agin, and a flirtin’ with the cap’n ; for 
you see ’twas ’greed to let ’em play their play out. 

“ Wal, Tom he lay there a waitin’ ; and he waited 
and waited and waited, till he ’most got asleep ; but 
finally he heard a stirrin’ in the box, as if the fellah 
was a gettin’ up. Tom he jest crawled out still and 
kerful, and stood up tight agin the wall. Putty 
soon he hears a grunt, and he sees the top o’ the box 
a risin’ up, and a man jest gettin’ out on’t mighty 
still. 

“ Wal, Tom he waited till he got fairly out on to 
the floor, and had his hand on the lock o’ the door, 
when he jumps on him, and puts both arms round 
him, and gin him a regular bear’s hug. 

“ ‘ Why, what’s this ? ’ says the man. 

“ 1 Guess ye’ll find out* darn ye,’ says Tom Tooth- 
acre. ‘So, ye wanted our ship, did ye? Wal, ye 
jest can’t have our ship,’ says Tom, says he ; and I 


100 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


tell you he jest run that ’are fellow up stairs lickety- 
split, for Tom was strong as a giant. 

“ The fust thing they saw was Mr. More hed got 
the widder by both arms, and was tying on ’em be- 
hind her. 4 Ye see, madam, your game’s up,’ says 
Mr. More, 4 but we’ll give ye a free passage to Bos- I 
ton, tho’,’ says he : 4 we wanted a couple o’ prisoners 
about these days, and you’ll do nicely.’ 

44 The fellers they was putty chopfallen, to be 
sure, and the one in women’s clothes ’specially : 
’cause when he was found out, he felt foolish enough 
in his petticuts ; but they was both took to Boston, i 
and given over as prisoners. 

44 Ye see, come to look into matters, they found 
these two young fellows, British officers, had formed j 
a regular plot to take Cap’n Tucker’s vessel, and run i 
it into Halifax ; and ye see, Cap’n Tucker he was so ; 
sort o’ spry, and knew all the Maine coast so well, 
and was so ’cute at dodgin’ in and out all them little 
bays and creeks and places all ’long shore, that he 
made the British considerable trouble, ’cause wher- 
ever they didn't want him, that’s where he was sure 
to be. 


THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX. 


101 


“ So they’d hatched up this ’ere plan. There was 
one or two British sailors had been and shipped 
aboard 1 The Brilliant ’ a week or two aforehand, and 
’twas suspected they was to have helped in the plot 
if things had gone as they laid out ; but I tell you, 
when the fellows see which way the cat jumped, 
they took pretty good care to say that they hadn’t 
nothin’ to do with it. Oh, no, by no manner o’ 
means! Wal, o’ course, ye know, it couldn’t be 
proved on ’em, and so we let it go. 

“ But I tell you, Cap’n Tucker he felt pretty 
cheap about his widder. The worst on’t was, they 
do say Ma’am Tucker got hold of it ; and you might 
know if a woman got hold of a thing like that she’d 
use it as handy as a cat would her claws. The wo- 
men they can’t no more help hittin’ a fellow a clip 
and a rap when they’ve fairly got him, than a cat 
when she’s ketched a mouse ; and so I shouldn’t 
wonder if the Commodore heard something about 
his widder every time he went home from his v’y- 
ages the longest day he had to live. I don’t know 
nothin’ ’bout it, ye know : I only kind o’ jedge by 
what looks, as human natur’ goes. 


102 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ But, Lordy massy ! boys, ’t wa’n’t nothin’ to be 
’shamed of in the cap’n. Folks ’ll have to answer for 
wus things at the last day than tryin’ to do a kind- 
ness to a poor widder, now, I tell you. It’s better to 
be took in doin’ a good thing, than never try to do 
good; and it’s my settled opinion,” said Sam, taking: 
up his mug of cider and caressing it tenderly, 
“ it’s my humble opinion, that the best sort o’ folks is 
the easiest took in, ’specially by the women. I 
reely don’t think I should a done a bit better my- 
self.” 



CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


NE of our most favorite legendary 
resorts was the old barn. 

Sam Lawson preferred it on many 
accounts. It was quiet and retired, 
that is to say, at such distance from his 
own house, that he could not hear if 
Hepsy called ever so loudly, and farther 
off than it would be convenient for that industrious 
and painstaking woman to follow him. Then there 
was the soft fragrant cushion of hay, on which his 
length of limb could be easily bestowed. 

Our barn had an upper loft with a swinging outer 
door that commanded a view of the old mill, the 
waterfall, and the distant windings of the river, with 
its grassy green banks, its graceful elm draperies, and 



103 


104 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


its white flocks of water-lilies ; and then on this 
Saturday afternoon we had Sam all to ourselves. It 
was a drowsy, dreamy October day, when the hens 
were lazily “ craw, crawing,” in a soft, conversational 
undertone with each other, as they scratched and 
picked the hay-seed under the barn windows. Below 
in the barn black Csesar sat quietly hatchelling flax, 
sometimes gurgling and giggling to himself with an 
overflow of that interior jollity with which he 
seemed to be always full. The African in New 1 
England was a curious contrast to everybody around 
him in the joy and satisfaction that he seemed to feel 
in the mere fact of being alive. Every white person 
was glad or sorry for some appreciable cause in the j 
past, present, or future, which was capable of being 
definitely stated ; but black Csesar was in an eternal 
giggle and frizzle and simmer of enjoyment for 
which he could give no earthly reason : he was an 
“ embodied joy,” like Shelley's skylark. 

“Jest hear him,” said Sam Lawson, looking pen- 
sively over the hay-mow, and strewing hayseed down 
on his wool. “ How that ’are critter seems to tickle 
and laugh all the while ’bout nothin’. Lordy massy ! 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


105 


he don’t seem never to consider that 4 this life’s a 
dream, an empty show.’ ” 

“ Look here, Sam,” we broke in, anxious to cut 
short a threatened stream of morality, “ you prom- 
ised to tell us about Capt. Kidd, and how you dug 
for his money.” 

“ Did I, now ? Wal, boys, that ’are history o’ 
Kidd’s is a warnin’ to fellers. Why, Kidd had pious 
parents and Bible and sanctuary privileges when he 
was a boy, and yet come to be hanged. It’s all in 
this ’ere song I’m a goin’ to sing ye. Lordy massy ! 
I wish I had my bass-viol now. — Caesar,” he said, 
calling down from his perch, 44 can’t you strike the 
pitch o’ 4 Cap’n Kidd,’ on your fiddle ? ” 

Caesar’s fiddle was never far from him. It was, in 
fact, tucked away in a nice little nook just over the 
manger; and he often caught an interval from his 
work to scrape a dancing-tune on it, keeping time 
with his heels, to our great delight. 

A most wailing minor-keyed tune was doled forth, 
which seemed quite refreshing to Sam’s pathetic vein, 
as he sang in his most lugubrious tones, — 


106 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ ‘ My name was Robert Kidd 
As I sailed, as I sailed, 

My name was Robert Kidd ; 

God’s laws I did forbid, 

And so wickedly I did, 

As I sailed, as I sailed.’ 

“Now ye see, boys, he’s a goin’ to tell how he 
abused his religious privileges ; just hear now : — 

“ ‘ My father taught me well, 

As I sailed, as I sailed ; 

My father taught me well 
To shun the gates of hell, 

But yet I did rebel, 

As I sailed, as I sailed. 

“ ‘ He put a Bible in my hand, 

As I sailed, as I sailed ; 

He put a Bible in my hand, 

And I sunk it in the sand 
Before I left the strand, 

As I sailed, as I sailed.* 

“ Did ye ever hear o’ such a hardened, contrary 
critter, boys? It’s awful to think on. Wal, ye see 
that ’are’s the way fellers allers begin the ways o’ 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


107 


sin, by turnin’ their backs on the Bible and the ad- 
vice o' pious parents. Now hear what he come 
to : — 

“ ‘ Then I murdered William More, 

As I sailed, as I sailed ; 

I murdered William More, 

And left him in his gore, 

Not many leagues from shore, 

As I sailed, as I sailed. 

“ ‘ To execution dock 

I must go, I must go. 

To execution dock, 

While thousands round me flock, 

To see me on the block, 

I must go, I must go.* 


“ There was a good deal more on’t,” said Sam, 
pausing, “ but I don’t seem to remember it ; but it’s 
real solemn and affectin’.” 

“ Who was Capt. Kidd, Sam ? ” said I. 

“ Wal, he was an officer in the British navy, and 
he got to bein’ a pirate : used to take ships and sink 
’em, and murder the folks ; and so they say he got 


108 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


no end o’ money, — gold and silver and precious 
stones, as many as the wise men in the East. But 
ye see, what good did it all do him ? He couldn’t 
use it, and dar’sn’t keep it ; so he used to bury it in 
spots round here and there in the awfullest heathen 
way ye ever heard of. Why, they say he allers used 
to kill one or two men or women or children of his 
prisoners, and bury with it, so that their sperits 
might keep watch on it ef anybody was to dig arter 
it. That ’are thing has been tried and tried and 
tried, but no man nor mother’s son on ’em ever got a 
cent that dug. ’Twas tried here’n Oldtown; and 
they come pretty nigh gettin’ on’t, but it gin 
’em the slip. Ye see, boys, it's the Devil's money , 
and he holds a pretty tight grip on’t.” 

“ Well, how was it about digging for it? Tell us, 
didyoitdoit? Were you there ? Did you see it? 
And why couldn't they get it ? ” we both asked 
eagerly and in one breath. 

“Why, Lordy massy! boys, your questions tumbles 
over each other thick as martins out o’ a martin-box. 
Now, you jest be moderate and let alone, and I’ll tell 
you all about it from the beginnin’ to the end. I 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


109 


didn’t railly have no hand in’t, though I was know- 
in’ to ’t, as I be to most things that goes on round 
here ; but my conscience wouldn’t railly a let me start 
on no sich under takin’. 

“ Wal, the one that fust sot the thing a goin’ was 
old Mother Hokum, that used to live up in that 
little tumble-down shed by the cranberry-pond up 
beyond the spring pastur’. They had a putty bad 
name, them Hokums. How they got a livin’ nobody 
knew ; for they didn’t seem to pay no attention to 
raisin’ nothin’ but childun, but the duce knows, 
there was plenty o’ them. Their old hut was like 
a rabbit-pen : there was a tow-head to every crack 
and cranny. ’Member what old Caesar said once 
when the word come to the store that old Hokum 
had got twins. ‘ S’pose de Lord knows best,’ says 
Caesar, ‘ but I thought dere was Hokums enough 
afore.’ Wal, even poor workin’ industrious folks 
like me finds it’s hard gettin’ along when there’s so 
many mouths to feed. Lordy massy! there don’t 
never seem to be no end on’t, and so it ain’t wonder- 
ful, come to think on’t, ef folks like them Hokums 
gets tempted to help along in ways that ain’t quite 


10 


110 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


right. Anyhow, folks did use to think that old 
Hokum was too sort o’ familiar with their wood-piles 
’long in the night, though they couldn’t never prove 
it on him ; and when Mother Hokum come to houses 
round to wash, folks use sometimes to miss pieces, 
here and there, though they never could find ’em on 
her ; then they was allers a gettin’ in debt here and a 
gettin’ in debt there. Why, they got to owin’ two dol- 
lars to Joe Gidger for butcher’s meat. Joe was sort 
o’ good-natured and let ’em have meat, ’cause Hokum 
he promised so fair to pay ; but he couldn’t never get 
it out o’ him. ’Member once Joe walked clear up to 
the cranberry-pond arter that ’are two dollars ; but 
Mother Hokum she see him a cornin’ jest as he come 
past the juniper-bush on the corner. She says to 
Hokum, 4 Get into bed, old man, quick, and let me 
tell the story,’ says she. So she covered him up ; 
and when Gidger come in she come up to him, and 
says she, 4 Why, Mr. Gidger, I’m jest ashamed to 
see ye : why, Mr. Hokum was jest a cornin’ down to 
pay ye that ’are money last week, but ye see he was 
took down with the small-pox ’ — Joe didn’t hear 
no more : he just turned round, and he streaked it 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


Ill 


out that ’are door with his coat-tails flyin’ out 
straight ahind him ; and old Mother Hokum she jest 
stood at the window holdin’ her sides and laughin’ 
fit to split, to see him run. That ’are’s jest a sample 
o’ the ways them Hokums cut up. 

“ Wal, you see, boys, there’s a queer kind o’ rock 
down on the bank ’o the river, that looks sort o’ like 
a grave-stone. The biggest part on’t is sunk down 
under ground, and it’s pretty well growed over with 
blackberry-vines ; but, when you scratch the bushes 
away, they used to make out some queer marks on 
that ’are rock. They was sort o’ lines and crosses ; 
and folks would have it that them was Kidd’s private 
marks, and that there was one o’ the places where 
he hid his money. 

“ Wal, there’s no sayin’ fairly how it come to be 
thought so ; but fellers used to say so, and they used 

sometimes to talk it over to the tahvern, and kind o’ 

\ 

winder whether or no, if they should dig, they 
wouldn’t come to suthin’. 

“Wal, old Mother Hokum she heard on’t, and 
she was a sort o’ enterprisin’ old crittur : fact was, 
she had to be, ’cause the young Hokums was jest like 


112 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


bag-worms, the more they growed the more they eat, 
and I expect she found it pretty hard to fill their 
mouths ; and so she said ef there was any thing 
under that ’are rock, they’d as good’s have it as the 
Devil ; and so she didn’t give old Hokum no peace 
o’ his life, but he must see what there was there. 

“ Wal, I was with ’em the night they was a talk- 
in’ on’t up. Ye see, Hokum he got thirty-seven 
cents’ worth o’ lemons and sperit. I see him goin’ 
by as I was out a splittin’ kindlin’s ; and says he, 
‘ Sam, you jest go ’long up to our house to-night,’ 
says he : ‘*Toddy Whitney and Harry Wiggin’s corn- 
in’ up, and we’re goin’ to have a little suthin’ hot,’ 
says he ; and he kind o’ showed me the lemons and 
sperit. And I told him I guessed I would go ’long. 
Wal, I kind o’ wanted to see what they’d be up to, 
ye know. 

“Wal, come to find out, they was a talkin’ about 
Cap’n Kidd’s treasures, and layin’ out how they 
should get it, and a settin’ one another on with gret 
stories about it. 

“ 4 I’ve heard that there was whole chists full o’ 
gold guineas,’ says one. 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


113 

“ ‘ And I’ve heard o’ gold bracelets and ear-rings 
and finger-rings all sparklin’ with diamonds,’ says 
another. 

“ 4 Maybe it’s old silver plate from some o’ them 
old West Indian grandees,’ says another. 

44 4 Wal, whatever it is,’ says Mother Hokum, 4 1 
want to be into it,’ says she. 

“ 4 Wal, Sam, won’t you jine ? ’ says they. 

44 4 Wal, boys,’ says I, 4 1 kind o’ don’t feel jest like 
j’inin’. I sort o’ ain’t clear about the rights on’t : 
seems to me it’s mighty nigh like goin’ to the Devil 
for money.’ 

44 4 Wal,’ says Mother Hokum, 4 what if ’tis ? 
Money’s money, get it how ye will ; and the Devil’s 
money ’ll buy as much meat as any. I’d go to the 
Devil, if he gave good money.’ 

44 4 Wal, I guess I wouldn’t,’ says I. 4 Don’t you 
’member the sermon Parson L®throp preached about 
hastin’ to be rich, last sabba’ day ? ’ 

44 4 Parson Lothrop be hanged ! ’ says she. 4 Wal, 
now,’ says she, 4 1 like to see a parson with his sill; 
stockin’s and great gold-headed cane, a lollopin’ on 
his carriage behind his fat, prancin’ hosses, cornin’ to 


10 * 


114 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


meetin’ to preach to us poor folks not to want to be 
rich ! How’d he like it to have forty-’leven children, 
and nothin’ to put onto ’em or into ’em, I wonder ? 
Guess if Lady Lothrop had to rub and scrub, and 
wear her fingers to the bone as I do, she’d want to 
be rich ; and I guess the parson, if he couldn’t get a 
bellyful for a week, would be for diggin’ up Kidd’s 
money, or doing ’most any thing else to make the pot 
bile.’ 

“ 4 Wal,’ says I, 4 I’ll kind o’ go with ye, boys, and 
sort o’ see how things turn out ; but I guess I won’t 
take no shere in’t,’ says I. 

44 Wal, they got it all planned out. They was to 
wait till the full moon, and then they was to get 
Primus King to go with ’em and help do the diggin’. 
Ye see, Hokum and Toddy Whitney and Wiggin are 
all putty softly fellers, and hate dreffully to work; 
and I tell you the Kidd money ain’t to be got without 
a pretty tough piece o’ diggin’. Why, it’s jest like 
diggin’ a well to get at it. Now, Primus King was 
the master hand for diggin’ wells, and so they said 
they’d get him by givin’ on him a shere. 

44 Harry Wiggin he didn’t want no nigger a sherin* 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


115 


in it, he said ; but Toddy and Hokum they said that 
when there was such stiff diggin’ to be done, they 
didn’t care if they did go in with a nigger. 

44 Wal, Wiggin he said he hadn’t no objection to 
havin’ the nigger do the diggin,’ it was sheriri * the 
'profits he objected to. 

44 4 Wal,’ says Hokum, 4 you can’t get him without,’ 
says he. 4 Primus knows too much,’ says he : 4 you 
can’t fool him.’ Finally they ’greed that they was to 
give Primus twenty dollars, and shere the treasure 
’mong themselves. 

44 Come to talk with Primus, he wouldn’t stick in a 
spade, unless they’d pay him aforehand. Ye see, Pri- 
mus was up to ’em ; he knowed about Gidger ? and 
there wa’n’t none on ’em that was particular good 
pay ; and so they all jest hed to rake and scrape, and 
pay him down the twenty dollars among ’em ; and 
they ’greed for the fust full moon, at twelve o’clock 
at night, the 9th of October. 

44 Wal, ye see I had to tell Hepsy I was goin’ out to 
watch. Wal, so I was ; but not jest in the way she 
took it : but, Lordy massy ! a feller has to tell his wife 
suthin’ to keep her quiet, ye know, ’specially Hepsy. 


116 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Wal, wal, of all the moonlight nights that ever I 
did see, I never did see one equal to that. Why, 
you could see the color o’ every thing. I ’member I 
could see how the huckleberry-bushes on the rock 
was red as blood when the moonlight shone through 
’em ; ’cause the leaves, you see, had begun to turn. 

“ Goin’ on our way we got to talkin’ about the 
sperits. 

“ 4 I ain’t afraid on ’em,’ says Hokum. ‘ What 
harm can a sperit do me ? ’ says he. 4 I don’t care ef 
there’s a dozen on ’em ; ’ and he took a swig at his 
bottle. 

“ 4 Oh ! there ain’t no sperits,’ says Harry Wiggin. 
‘ That ’are talk’s all nonsense ; ’ and he took a swi<r 

D 

at h is bottle. 

“ 4 Wal,’ says Toddy, 4 1 don’t know ’bout that ’are. 
Me and Ike Sanders has seen the sperits in the Cap’n 
Brown house. We thought we’d jest have a peek 
into the window one night ; and there was a whole 
flock o’ black colts without no heads on come rushin’ 
on us and knocked us flat.’ 

“ 4 1 expect you’d been at the tahvern,’ said Hokum. 

“‘Wal, yes, we had; but them was sperits: we 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


117 


wa’n’t drunk, now ; we was jest as sober as ever we 
was.’ 

“ 4 Wal, they won’t get away my money,’ says Pri- 
mus, for I put it safe away in Dinah’s teapot afore I 
come out ; ’ and then he showed all his ivories from 
ear to ear. 4 1 think all this ’are’s sort o’ foolishness,’ 
says Primus. 

44 4 Wal,’ says 1, 4 boys, I ain’t a goin’ to have no 
part or lot in this ’ere matter, but I’ll jest lay it off to 
you how it’s to be done. Ef Kidd’s money is under 
this rock, there’s sperits that watch it, and you 
mustn’t give ’em no advantage. There mustn’t be a 
word spoke from the time ye get sight o’ the treas- 
ure till ye get it safe up on to firm ground,’ says I. 

4 Ef ye do, it’ll vanish right out o’ sight. I’ve talked 
with them that has dug down to it and seen it; 
but they allers lost it, ’cause they’d call out and 
say suthin’ ; and the minute they spoke, away it 
went.’ 

44 Wal, so they marked off the ground ; and Pri- 
mus he begun to dig, and the rest kind o’ sot round. 
It was so still it was kind o’ solemn. Ye see, it was 
past twelve o’clock, and every critter in Oldtown 


118 


OLDTOWJST FIRESIDE STORIES. 


was asleep ; and there was two whippoorwills on the 
great Cap’n Brown elm-trees, that kep’ a answerin’ 
each other back and forward sort o’ solitary like ; and 
then every once in a while there’d come a sort o’ 
strange whisper up among the elm-tree leaves, jest 
as if there was talkin’ goin’ on ; and every time Pri- 
mus struck his spade into the ground it sounded sort 
o’ holler, jest as if he’d been a diggin’ a grave. 4 It’s 
kind o’ melancholy,’ says I, ‘ to think o’ them poor 
critters that had to be killed and buried jest to keep 
this ’ere treasure. What awful things ’ll be brought 
to light in the judgment day ! Them poor critters 
they loved to live and hated to die as much as any 
on us ; but no, they hed to die jest to satisfy that 
critter’s wicked will. I’ve heard them as thought 
they could tell the Cap’n Kidd places by layin’ their 
ear to the ground at midnight, and they’d hear 
groans and wailin’s.” 

“ Why, Sam ! were there really people who could 
tell where Kidd’s money was ? ” I here interposed. 

“ Oh, sartin ! why, yis. There was Shebna Bascom, 
he was one. Shebna could always tell what was un- 
der the earth. He’d cut a hazel-stick, and hold it in 










* 











“ They dug down about five feet.” — Page 1 19 . 









CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


119 


his hand when folks was wantin’ to know where to 
dig wells ; and that ’are stick would jest turn in his 
hand, and p’int down till it would fairly grind the 
bark off ; and ef you dug in that place you was sure 
to find a spring. Oh, yis ! Shebna he’s told many 
where the Kidd money was, and been with ’em when 
they dug for it ; but the pester on’t was they alters 
lost it, ’cause they would some on ’em speak afore 
they thought.” 

“ But, Sam, what about this digging ? Let’s 
know what came of it,” said we, as Sam appeared to 
lose his way in his story. 

“ Wal, ye see, they dug down about five feet, when 
Primus he struck his spade smack on something that 
chincked like iron. 

“ Wal, then Hokum and Toddy Whitney was into 
the hole in a minute : they made Primus get out, and 
they took the spade, ’cause they wanted to be sure to 
come on it themselves. 

“Wal, they begun, and they dug and he scraped, 
and sure enough they come to a gret iron pot as big 
as your granny’s dinner-pot, with an iron bale to it. 

“ Wal, then they put down a rope, and he put the 


120 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


rope through the handle ; then Hokum and Toddy they' 
clambered upon the bank, and all on ’em began to draw 
up jest as still and silent as could be. They drawed and 
they drawed, till they jest got it even with the ground,! 
when Toddy spoke out all in a tremble, ‘ There,’ 
says he, ‘ we’ve got it ! ’ And the minit he spoke 
they was both struck by suthin ’ that knocked ’emi 
clean over ; and the rope give a crack like a pistol- 
shot, and broke short off ; and the pot went down, 
down, down, and they heard it goin’, jink, jink, jink; 
and it went way down into the earth, and the ground 
closed over it ; and then they heard the screechin’est I 
laugh ye ever did hear.” 

“ I want to know, Sam, did you see that pot ? ” I 
exclaimed at this part of the story. 

“Wal, no, I didn’t. Ye see, I jest happened to 
drop asleep while they was diggin’, I was so kind o’ 
tired, and I didn’t wake up till it was all over. 

“ I was waked up, ’cause there was consid’able of 
a scuffle ; for Hokum was so mad at Toddy for 
speakin’, that he was a fistin’ on him ; and old Pri- 
mus he jest haw-hawed and laughed. ‘ Wal, I got 
my money safe, anyhow,’ says he. 


CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY. 


121 


“ 4 Wal, come to,’ says I. 4 ’Tain’t no use cryin’ 
for spilt milk : you’ve jest got to turn in now and fill 
up this ’ere hole, else the selectmen ’ll be down on 

ye-’ 

“ ‘ Wal,’ says Primus, 4 1 didn’t engage to fill up 
no holes ; ’ and he put his spade on his shoulder and 
trudged off. 

44 Wal, it was putty hard work, fillin’ in that hole ; 

I but Hokum and Toddy and Wiggin had to do it, 

! ’cause they didn’t want to have everybody a laughin’ 
at ’em ; and I kind o’ tried to set it home to ’em, 
showin’ on ’em that ’twas all for the best. 

44 4 Ef you’d a been left to get that ’are money, 
there’d a come a cuss with it,’ says I. 4 It shows the 
vanity o’ hastin’ to be rich.’ 

44 4 Oh, you shet up ! ’ says Hokum, says he. 4 You 
never hasted to any thing,’ says he. Ye see, he was 
riled, that’s why he spoke so.” 

44 Sam,” said we, after maturely reflecting over the 
story, 44 what do you suppose was in that pot ? ” 

44 Lordy massy ! boys : ye never will be done askin’ 
questions. Why, how should I know ? ” 


“MIS’ ELD ERKIN’S PITCHER.” 


3 see, boys,” said Sam Lawson, as we 
were gathering young wintergreen on a 
sunny hillside in June, — “ ye see, folks 
don’t allers know what their marcies is 
when they sees ’em. Folks is kind o’ 
blinded ; and, when a providence comes 
along, they don’t seem to know how to 
take it, and they growl and grumble about what turns 
out the best things that ever happened to ’em in their 
lives. It ’s like Mis’ Elderkin’s pitcher.” 

“ What about Mis’ Elderkin’s pitcher ? ” said both 
of us in one breath. 

“ Didn’t I never tell ye, now ? ” said Sam : “ why, 
I wanter know ? ” 

No, we were sure he never had told us ; and Sain,* 



122 


MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.” 


123 


as usual, began clearing tbe ground by a thorough in- 
troduction, with statistical expositions. 

44 Wal, ye see, Mis’ Elderkin she lives now over to 
Sherburne in about the handsomest house in Sher- 
burne, — a high white house, with green blinds and 
white pillars in front, — and she rides out in her own 
kerridge ; and Mr. Elderkin, he ’s a deakin in the 
church, and a colonel in the malitia, and a s’lec^nan, 
and pretty much atop every thing there is goih’ in 
Sherburne, and it all come of that ’are pitcher.” 

44 What pitcher ? ” we shouted in chorus. 

44 Lordy massy ! that ’are ’s jest what I ’m a goin’ 
to tell you about ; but, ye see, a feller’s jest got to 
make a beginnin’ to all things. 

44 Mis’ Elderkin she thinks she’s a gret lady nowa- 
days, I s’pose ; but I ’member when she was Miry 
Brown over here ’n Oldtown, and I used to be waitin’ 
on her to singing-school. 

44 Miry and I was putty good friends along in them 
days, — we was putty consid’able kind o’ intimate. 
Fact is, boys, there was times in them days when I 
thought whether or no I wouldn’t take Miry myself,” 
said Sam, his face growing luminous with the pleas- 


124 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


ing idea of his former masculine attractions and priv- 
ileges. “ Yis,” he continued, “ there was a time 
when folks said I could a hed Miry ef I’d asked her ; 
and I putty much think so myself, but I didn’t say 
nothin’ : marriage is allers kind o’ ventursome ; an’ 
Miry had such up-and-down kind o’ ways, I was sort 
o’ fraid on ’t. 

Lordy massy ! boys, you mustn’t never tell 
Hep'sy I said so, ’cause she’d be mad enough to bite a 
shingle-nail in two. Not that she sets so very gret 
by me neither ; but then women’s backs is allers up 
ef they think anybody else could a hed you, whether 
they want you themselves or not. 

“Ye see, Miry she was old Black Hoss John 
Brown’s da’ter, and lived up there in that ’are big 
brown house by the meetin’-house, that hes the red 
hollyhock in the front yard. Miry was about the 
handsomest gal that went into the singers’ seat a 
Sunday. 

“ I tell you she wa’n’t none o’ your milk-and-sugar 
gals neither, — she was ’mazin’ strong built. She 
was the strongest gal in her arms that I ever see. 
Why, I ’ve seen Miry take up a barrel o’ flour, and lift 


“MIS’ ELDERKLN’S PITCHER.’’ 125 

it right into the kitchen ; and it would jest make the 
pink come into her cheeks like' two roses, but she 
never seemed to mind it a grain. She had a good 
strong back of her own, and she was straight as a 
poplar, with snappin’ black eyes, and I tell you there 
was a snap to her tongue too. Nobody never got 
ahead o’ Miry ; she’d give every fellow as good as he 
sent, but for all that she was a gret favorite. 

“ Miry was one o’ your briery, scratchy gals, "that 
seems to catch fellers in thorns. She allers fit and 
flouted her beaux, and the more she fit and flouted 
’em the more they ’d be arter her. There wa’n’t a 
gal in all Oldtown that led such a string o’ fellers ar- 
ter her ; ’cause, you see, she’d now and then throw 
’em a good word over her shoulder, and then they ’d 
all fight who should get it, and she’d jest laugh to 
see ’em do it. 

“ Why, there was Tom Sawin, he was one o’ her 
beaux, and Jim Moss, and Ike Bacon ; and there was 
a Boston boy, Tom Beacon, he came up from Cam- 
bridge to rusticate with Parson Lothrop ; he thought 
he must have his say with Miry, but he got pretty 
well come up with. You see, he thought ’cause he 


11* 


126 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


was Boston born that he was kind o’ aristocracy, and 
hed a right jest to pick and choose ’mong country 
gals ; but the way he got come up with by Miry was 
too funny for any thing.” 

“ Do tell us about it,” we said, as Sam made an 
artful pause, designed to draw forth solicitation. 

“ Wal, ye see, Tom Beacon he told Ike Bacon about 
it, and Ike he told me. ’Twas this way. Ye see, 
there was a quiltin’ up to Mis’ Cap’n Broad’s, and 
Tom Beacon he was there ; and come to goin’ home 
with the gals, Tom he cut Ike out, and got Miry all 
to himself ; and ’twas a putty long piece of a walk 
from Mis’ Cap’n Broad’s up past the swamp and the 
stone pastur’ clear up to old Black Hoss John’s. 

“ Wal, Tom he was in high feather ’cause Miry 
took him, so that he didn’t reelly know how to be- 
have ; and so, as they was walkin’ along past Parson 
Lothrop’s apple-orchard, Tom thought he’d try bein’ 
familiar, and he undertook to put his arm round Miry. 
Wal, if she didn’t jest take that little fellow by his 
two shoulders and whirl him over the fence into the 
orchard quicker ’n no time. ‘ Why,’ says Tom, ‘ the 
fust I knew I was lyin’ on my back under the apple- 


“MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.” 127 

t 

trees lookin’ up at the stars.’ Miry she jest walked 
off home and said nothin’ to nobody, — it wa’n’t her 
way to talk much about things; and, if it hedn’t 
ben for Tom Beacon himself, nobody need ’a’ known 
nothin’ about it. Tom was a little fellow, you see, 
and ’mazin’ good-natured, and one o’ the sort that 
couldn’t keep nothin’ to himself ; and so he let the. 
cat out o’ the bag himself. Wal, there didn’t nobody 
think the worse o’ Miry. When fellers find a gal 
won’t take saace from no man, they kind o’ respect 
her ; and then fellers allers thinks ef it hed ben them , 
now, things ’d ’a’ been different. That’s jest what 
Jim Moss and Ike Bacon said : they said, why Tom 
Beacon was a fool not to know better how to get 
along with Miry, — they never had no trouble. The 
fun of it was, that Tom Beacon himself was more 
crazy after her than he was afore ; and they say he 
made Miry a right up-and-down offer, and Miry she 
jest wouldn’t have him. 

“ Wal, you see, that went agin old Black Hoss 
John’s idees : old Black Hoss was about as close as 
a nut and as contrairy as a pipperage-tree. You 
ought to ’a’ seen him. Why, his face was all a per- 


128 OLDTOWN^ FIRESIDE STORIES. 

feet crisscross o’ wrinkles. There wa’n’t a spot where 
you could put a pin down that there wa’n’t a wrin- 
kle ; and they used to say that he held on to every 
cent that went through his fingers till he’d pinched 
it into two. You couldn’t say that his god was his 
belly, for he hedn’t none, no more’n an old file : folks 
said that he’d starved himself till the moon’d shine 
through him. 

“ Old Black Hoss was awfully grouty about Miry’s 
refusin’ Tom Beacon, ’cause there was his houses and 
lots o’ land in Boston. A drefful worldly old critter 
Black Hoss John was : he was like the rich fool in 
the gospel. Wal, he’s dead and gone now, poor crit- 
ter, and what good has it all done him ? It’s as the 
Scriptur’ says, 1 He heapeth up riches, and knoweth 
not who shall gather them.’ 

“ Miry hed a pretty hard row to hoe with old Black 
Hoss John. She was up early and down late, and 
kep’ every thing a goin’. She made the cheese and 
made the butter, and between spells she braided her- 
self handsome straw bunnets, and fixed up her 
clothes; and somehow she worked it so when she 
sold her butter and cheese that there was somethin’ 


129 


“MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.” 

* 

for ribbins and flowers. You know the Scriptur’ 
says, ‘ Can a maid forget her ornaments?’ Wal, 
Miry didn’t. I ’member I used to lead the singin’ in 
them days, and Miry she used to sing counter, so we 
sot putty near together in the singers’ seats ; and I 
used to think Sunday mornin’s when she come to 
meetin’ in her white dress and her red cheeks, and 
her bunnet all tipped off with laylock, that ’twas for 
all the world jest like sunshine to have her come 
into the singers’ seats. Them was the days that I 
didn’t improve my privileges, boys,” said Sam, sigh- 
ing deeply. “ There was times that ef I’d a spoke, 
there’s no knowin’ what mightn’t ’a' happened, ’cause, 
you see, boys, I was better lookin’ in them days than 
I be now. Now you mind, boys, when you grow up, 
ef you get to waitin’ on a nice gal, and you’re ’most 
a mind to speak up to her, don’t you go and put it 
off, ’cause, ef you do, you may live to repent it. 

“ Wal, you see, from the time that Bill Elderkin 
come and took the academy, I could see plain 
enough that it was time for me to hang up my fid- 
dle. Bill he used to set in the singers’ seats, too, 
and he would have it that he sung tenor. He no 


130 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


more sung tenor than a skunk-blackbird; but he 
made b’lieve he did, jest to git next to Miry in the 
singers’ seats. They used to set there in the seats a 
writin’ backward and forward to each other till they 
tore out all the leaves of the hymn-books, and the 
singin’-books besides. Wal, I never thought that the 
house o’ the Lord was jest the place to be courtin’ 
in, and I used to get consid’able shocked at the way 
things went on atween ’em. Why, they’d be a 
writin’ all sermon-time ; and I’ve seen him a lookin’ 
at her all through the long prayer in a way that 
wa’n’t right, considerin’ they was both professors of 
religion. But then the fact was, old Black Hoss 
John was to blame for it, ’cause he never let ’em 
have no chance to hum. Ye see, old Black Hoss 
he was sot agin Elderkin ’cause he was poor. You 
see, his mother, the old Widdah Elderkin, she was 
jest about the poorest, peakedest old body over to 
Sherburne, and went out to days’ works ; and Bill 
Elderkin he was all for books and lamin’, and old 
Black Hoss John he thought it was just shiftlessness : 
but Miry she thought he was a genius ; and she got 
it sot in her mind that he was goin’ to be President 
o’ the United States, or some sich. 


“MTS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.’ 


131 


“ Wal, old Black Hoss he wa’n’t none too polite 
to Miry s beaux in gineral, but when Elderkin used 
to come to see her he was snarlier than a saw : he 
hadn’t a good word for him noways; and he’d rake 
up the fire right before his face and eyes, and rattle 
about fastenin’ up the windows, and tramp up to 
bed, and call down the chamber-stairs to Miry to go 
to bed, and was sort o’ aggravatin’ every way. 

“ Wal, ef folks wants to get a gal set on havin’ a 
man, that ’ere’s the way to go to work. Miry had 
a consid’able stiff will of her own ; and, ef she didn’t 
care about Tom Beacon before, she hated him now ; 
and, if she liked Bill Elderkin before, she was clean 
gone over to him now. And so she took to goin’ to 
the Wednesday-evenin’ lecture, and the Friday-even- 
in’ prayer-meetin’, and the singin’-school, jest as 
regular as a clock, and so did he ; and arterwards 
they allers walked home the longest way. Fathers 
may jest as well let their gals be courted in the 
house, peaceable, ’cause, if they can’t be courted 
there, they’ll find places where they can be : it’s jest 
human natur’. 

“ Wal, come fall, Elderkin he went to college up to 


132 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


Brunswick ; and then I used to see the letters as 
regular up to the store every week, cornin’ in from 
Brunswick, and old Black Hoss John he see ’em too, 
and got a way of droppin’ on ’em in his coat-pocket 
when he come up to the store, and folks used to say 
that the letters that went into his coat-pocket didn’t 
get to Miry. Anyhow, Miry she says to me one 
day, says she, 4 Sam, you’re up round the post-office 
a good deal,’ says she. 4 1 wish, if you see any let- 
ters for me, you’d jest bring ’em along.’ I see right 
into it, and I told her to be sure I would ; and so I 
used to have the carryin’ of great thick letters every 
week. Wal, I was waitin’ on Hepsy along about 
them times, and so Miry and I kind o’ sympathized. 
Hepsy was a pretty gal, and I thought it was all 
best as ’twas ; any way, I knew I couldn’t get Miry, 
and I could get Hepsy, and that made all the dif- 
ference in the world. 

“ Wal, that next winter old Black Hoss was took 
down with rheumatism, and I tell you if Miry didn’t 
have a time on’t ! He wa’n’t noways sweet-tem- 
pered when he was well ; but come to be crooked 
up with the rheumatis” and kep’ awake nights, it 


“MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.” 133 

seemed as if he was determined there shouldn’t no- 
body have no peace so long as he couldn’t. 

“ He’d get Miry up and down with him night 
after night a makin’ her heat flannels and vinegar, 
and then he’d jaw and scold so that she was eenymost 
beat out. He wouldn’t have nobody set up with 
him, though there was offers made. No: he said 
Miry was his daughter, and ’twas her bisness to 
take care on him. 

“ Miry was clear worked down : folks kind o’ 
pitied her. She was a strong gal, but there’s things 
that wears out the strongest. The worst on’t was, it 
humr on so. Old Black Hoss had a most amazin’ 
sight o’ constitution. He’d go all down to death’s 
door, and seem hardly to have the breath o’ life in 
him, and then up he’d come agin ! These ’ere old 
folks that nobody wants to have live allers hev such 
a sight o’ wear in ’em, they jest last and last; and 
it really did seem as if he’d wear Miry out and get 
her into the grave fust, for she got a cough with 
bein’ up so much in the cold, and grew thin as a 
shadder. ’Member one time I went up there to 
offer to watch jest in the spring o’ the year, when 


12 


134 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


the laylocks was jest a buddin’ out, and Miry she 
come and talked with me over the fence ; and the 
poor gal she fairly broke down, and sobbed as if her 
heart would break, a tellin’ me her trouble. 

“Wal, it reelly affected me more to have Miry 
give up so than most gals, ’cause she’d allers held 
her head up, and hed sich a sight o’ grit and resolu- 
tion ; but she told me all about it. 

“ It seems old Black Hoss he wa’n’t content with 
worryin’ on her, and gettin’ on her up nights, but he 
kep’ a hectorin’ her about Bill Elderkin, and wantin’ 
on her to promise that she wouldn’t hev Bill when 
he was dead and gone ; and Miry she wouldn’t prom- 
ise, and then the old man said she shouldn’t have a 
cent from him if she didn’t, and so they had it back 
and forth. Everybody in town was say in’ what a 
shame ’twas that he should sarve her so ; for though 
he hed other children, they was married and gone, 
and there wa’n’t none of them to do for him but 
jest Miry. 

“Wal, he hung on till jest as the pinys in the 
front yard was beginnin’ to blow out, and then he 
began to feel he was a goin’, and he sent for Parson 


MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.” 


135 


«< 


Lothr. v p to know what was to be done about his 
sou). 

“‘Wal,’ says Parson Lothrop, ‘you must settle 
up all your worldly affairs ; you must be in peace 
and love with all mankind; and, if you’ve wronged 
anybody, you must make it good to ’em.’ 

“ Old Black Hoss he bounced right over in his 
bed with his back to the minister. 

“ 4 The devil ! ’ says he : 4 ’twill take all I’ve 
got.’ And he never spoke another word, though 
Parson Lothrop he prayed with him, and did what 
he could for him. 

44 Wal, that night I sot up with him; and he 
went off ’tween two and three in the mornin’, and 
I laid him out regular. Of all the racks o’ bone I 
ever see, I never see a human critter so poor as 
he was. ’Twa’n’t nothin’ but his awful will kep’ 
his soul in his body so long, as it was. 

44 We had the funeral in the meetin’-house a Sun- 
day ; and Parson Lothrop he preached a sarmon on 
contentment on the text, 4 We brought nothin’ into 
the world, and it’s sartin we can carry nothin’ out; 
and having food and raiment, let us be therewith 


136 


OLDTTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


■content.’ Parson Lothrop be- got round the subject 
about as handsome as he could : he- didn’t say what 
a skinflint old BOack Hoss was, but lie talked In a gin 
•j^ral way about the vanity o r worry in’ an’’ serapin 
to heap up riches. Ye see. Parson Lothrop lie could 
•say it all putty easy, too, ’cause- since be- married a 
irich wife he never hed no occasion to worry about, 
temporal matters. Folks aliens; preaches- better oni 
the vanity o’ riches when they’s. iin toFable- easy 
.circumstances. Ye see, when folks is pestered! and! 
worried to pay their bills, and don’t know where- 
the next dollar’s to come from, it’s a great tempta- 
tion to be kind o’ valooin’ riches, and mebbe- en- 
vy'in’ those that’s got ’em ; whereas; when one’s ac- 
counts all pays themselves, and the money comes; 
jest when its wanted regular, a. body feels sort ©’’ 
composed like, and able to take; the- right view ©>” 
things, like Parson Lothrop. 

“ Wal, arter sermon the relatic ms all went over to 
the old house to hear the willreadl ; and, as I was kind 
<o’ friend with the family, I jest s lipped in along with 
the rest- 

** “ Squire Jones he had the will ; ? md so when* they all 


“MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER/’ 137 

got sot round all solemn, he broke the seals and un- 
folded it, cracklin’ it a good while afore he begun ; 
and it was so still you might a heard a pin drop when 
lie begun to read. Fust, there was the farm and 
stock, he left to his son John Brown over in Sher- 
burne. Then there was the household stuff and all 
them things, spoons and dishes, and beds and kiver- 
lids, and so on, to his da’ter Polly Blanchard. And 
then, last of all, he says, he left to his da’ter Miry 
the pitcher that was on the top o’ the shelf in his bed- 
room closet . 

“ That ’are was an old cracked pitcher that Miry al- 
lers hed hated the sight of, and spring and fall she used 
to beg her father to let her throw it away ; but no, 
he wouldn’t let her touch it, and so it stood gatherin’ 
dust. 

“ Some on ’em run and handed it down ; and it 
seemed jest full o’ scourin’-sand and nothin’ else, and 
they handed it to Miry. 

“ Wal, Miry she was wrathy then. She didn’t so 
much mind bein’ left out in the will, ’cause she ex- 
pected that ; but to have that ’are old pitcher poked at 
her so sort o’ scornful was more’n she could bear. 


12 * 


138 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ She took it and gin it a throw across the room 
with all her might ; and it hit agin the wall and broke 
into a thousand bits, when out rolled hundreds of 
gold pieces ; great gold eagles and guineas flew round 
the kitchen jest as thick as dandelions in a meadow. 
I tell you, she scrabbled them up pretty quick, and 
we all helped her. 

“ Come to count ’em over, Miry had the best for- 
tin of the whole, as ’twas right and proper she 
should. Miry she was a sensible gal, and she in- 
vested her money well ; and so, when Bill Elderkin 
got through his law-studies, he found a wife that 
cquld make a nice beginnin’ with him. And that’s 
the way, you see, they came to be doin’ as well as 
they be. 

“ So, boys, you jest mind and remember and allers 
see what there is in a providence afore you quarrel 
with it, ’cause there’s a good many things in this 
world turns out like Mis’ Elderkin’s pitcher.” 



“ Great gold eagles and guineas flew round the kitchen” — Page 138. 





THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN 
HOUSE. 



OW, Sam, tell us certain true, is there 
any such things as ghosts ? ” 


“ Be there ghosts ? ” said Sam, imme- 
diately translating into his vernacular 
grammar : u wal, now, that are’s jest 
the question, ye see.” 


Well, grandma thinks there are, and 


Aunt Lois thinks it’s all nonsense. Why, Aunt Lois 
don’t even believe the stories in Cotton Mather’s 
‘ Magnalia.’ ” 

“ Wanter know ? ” said Sam, with a tone of slow, 
languid meditation. 

We were sitting on a bank of the Charles River, 
fishing. The soft melancholy red of evening was 


139 


140 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


fading off in streaks on the glassy water, and the 
houses of Oldtown were beginning to loom through 
the gloom, solemn and ghostly. There are times 
and tones and moods of nature that make all the 
vulgar, daily real seem shadowy, vague, and super- 
natural, as if the outlines of this hard material pres- 
ent were fading into the invisible and unknown. So 
Oldtown, with its elm-trees, its great square white 
houses, its meeting-house and tavern and black- 
smith’s shop and mill, which at high noon seem as 
real and as commonplace as possible, at this hour of 
the evening were dreamy and solemn. They rose up 
blurred, indistinct, dark ; here and there winking 
candles sent long lines of light through the shadows, 
and little drops of unforeseen rain rippled the sheeny 
darkness of the water. 

“ Wal, you see, boys, in them things it’s jest as 
well to mind your granny. There’s a consid’able 
sight o’ gumption in grandmas. You look at the 
folks that’s alius tellin’ you what they don’t believe, 
— they don’t believe this, and they don’t believe 
that, — and what sort o’ folks is they ? Whj', like 
yer Aunt Lois, sort o’ stringy and dry. There ain’t 
no ’sorption got out o’ not believin’ nothin’. 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BKOWN HOUSE. 141 


u Lord a massy ! we don’t know nothin’ ’bout them 
things. We hain’t ben there, and can’t say that 
there ain’t no ghosts and sich ; can we, now ? ” 

We agreed to that fact, and sat a little closer to 
Sam in the gathering gloom. 

“ Tell us about the Cap’n Brown house, Sam.” 

“ Ye didn’t never go over the Cap’n Brown 
house ? ” 

No, we had not that advantage. 

“Wal, yer see, Cap’n Brown he made all his 
money to sea, in furrin parts, and then come here to 
Oldtown to settle down. 

“ Now, there ain’t no knowin’ ’bout these ’ere old 
ship-masters, where they’s ben, or what they’s ben a 
doin’, or how they got their money. Ask me no 
questions, and I’ll tell ye no lies, is ’bout the best 
philosophy for them. Wal, it didn’t do no good to 
ask Cap’n Brown questions too close, ’cause you 
didn’t git no satisfaction. Nobody rightly knew 
Tout who his folks was, or where they come from ; 
and, ef a body asked him, he used to say that the 
very fust he know’d ’bout himself he was a young 
man walkin’ the streets in London. 


142 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ But, yer see, boys, he hed money, and that is 
about all folks wanter know when a man comes to 
settle down. And he bought that ’are place, and 
built that ’are house. He built it all sea-cap’n 

fashion, so’s to feel as much at home as he could. 

— - 

The parlor was like a ship’s cabin. The table and 
chairs was fastened down to the floor, and the closets 
was made with holes to set the casters and the 
decanters and bottles in, jest’s they be at sea ; 
and there was stanchions to hold on by; and they 
say that blowy nights the cap’n used to fire up 
pretty well with his grog, till he hed about all he 
could carry, and then he’d set and hold on, and hear 
the wind blow, and kind o’ feel out to sea right 
there to hum. There wasn’t no Mis’ Cap’n Brown, j 
and there didn’t seem likely to be none. And 
whether there ever hed been one, nobody know’d. 
He hed an old black Guinea nigger-woman, named 
Quassia, that did his work. She was shaped pretty 
much like one o’ these ’ere great crookneck-squashes. ' 
She wa’n’t no gret beauty, I can tell you ; and she 
used to wear a gret red turban and a yaller short 
gown and red petticoat, and a gret string o’ gold 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 143 


beads round her neck, and gret big gold hoops in 
her ears, made right in the middle o’ Africa among 
the heathen there. For all she was black, she 
thought a heap o’ herself, and was consid’able sort 
o’ predominative over the cap’n. Lordy massy ! 
boys, it’s alius so. Get a man and a woman togeth- 
er, — any sort o’ woman you’re a mind to, don’t care 
who ’tis, — and one way or another she gets the rule 
over him, and he jest has to train to her fife. Some 
does it one way, and some does it another ; some does 
it by jawin’, and some does it by kissin’, and some 
does it by faculty and contrivance ; but one way or 
another they allers does it. Old Cap’n Brown was a 
good stout, stocky kind o’ John Bull sort o’ fellow, 
and a good judge o’ sperits, and allers kep’ the best 
in them are cupboards o’ his’n ; but, fust and last, 
things in his house went pretty much as old Quassia 
said. 

“ Folks got to kind o’ respectin’ Quassia. She 
come to meetin’ Sunday regular, and sot all fixed up 
in red and yaller and green, with glass beads and 
what not, lookin’ for all the world like one o’ them 
ugly Indian idols ; but she was well-behaved # as any 


144 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


Christian. She was a master hand at cookin’. Her 
bread and biscuits couldn’t be beat, and no couldn’t^ 
her pies, and there wa’n’t no such pound-cake as she 
made nowhere. Wal, this ’ere story I’m a goin’ to 
tell you was told me by Cinthy Pendleton. There j 
ain’t a more respectable gal, old or young, than! 
Cinthy nowheres. She lives over to Sherburne now, 
and I hear tell she’s sot up a manty-makin’ business ; 
but then she used to do tailorin’ in Oldtown. She i 
was a member o’ the church, and a good Christian as I 
ever was. Wal, ye see, Quassia she got Cinthy to I 
come up and spend a week to the Cap’n Brown | 
house, a doin’ tailorin’ and a fixin’ over his close : ! 
’twas along toward the fust o’ March. Cinthy she 
sot by the fire in the front parlor with her goose and 
her press-board and her work : for there wa’n’t no 
company callin’, and the snow was drifted four feet 
deep right across the front door ; so there wa’n’t 
much danger o’ any body cornin’ in. And the cap’n 
he was a perlite man to wimmen ; and Cinthy she 
liked it jest as well not to have companj^, ’cause the 
cap’n he’d make himself entertainin’ tellin’ on her 
sea-stories, and all about his adventures among the 


the GHOST IN THE CAP’N brown house. 145 


Ammonites, and Perresites, and Jebusites, and all 
sorts o’ heathen people he’d been among. 

“ Wal, that ’are week there come on the master 
snow-storm. Of all the snow-storms that hed ben, 
that ’are was the beater ; and I tell you the wind blew 
! as if ’twas the last chance it was ever goin’ to hev. 
Wal, it’s kind o’ scary like to be shet up in a lone 
house with all natur’ a kind o’ breakin’ out, and goin’ 
on so, and the snow a cornin’ down so thick ye can’t 
| see ’cross the street, and the wind a pipin’ and a 
squeelin’ and a rumblin’ and a tumblin’ fust down this 
chimney and then down that. I tell you, it sort o’ 
sets a feller thinkin’ o’ the three great things, — 
death, judgment, and etarnaty ; and I don’t care who 
the folks is, nor how good they be, there’s times 
when they must be feelin’ putty consid’able solemn. 

“Wal, Cinthy she said she kind o’ felt so along, 
and she hed a sort o’ queer feelin’ come over her as 
if there was somebody or somethin’ round the house 
,more’n appeared. She said she sort o’ felt it in the 
air ; but it seemed to her silly, and she tried to get 
over it. But two or three times, she said, when it 
got to be dusk, she felt somebody go by her up the 


13 


146 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


stairs. The front entry wa’n’t very light in the day- 
time, and in the storm, come five o’clock, it was so 
dark that all you could see was jest a gleam o’ some- 
thin’, and two or three times when she started to go 
up stairs she see a soft white suthin’ that seemed 
goin’ up before her, and she stopped with her heart a 
heatin’ like a trip-hammer, and she sort o’ saw it go 
up and along the entry to the cap’n’s door, and then 
it seemed to go right through, ’cause the door didn’t 
open. 

“ Wal, Cinthy says she to old Quassia, says she, 
4 Is there anybody lives in this house but us ? ’ 

“ 4 Anybody lives here ? ’ says Quassia : 4 what you 
mean ? ’ says she. 

44 Says Cinthy, 4 1 thought somebody went past me 
on the stairs last night and to-night.’ 

44 Lordy massy ! how old Quassia did screech and 
laugh. 4 Good Lord ! ’ says she, 4 how foolish white 
folks is ! Somebody went past you ? Was’t the 
capt’in ? ’ 

44 4 No, it wa’n’t the cap’n,’ says she: 4 it was 
somethin’ soft and white, and moved very still ; it 
was like somethin’ in the air,’ says she. 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 147 


Then Quassia she haw-hawed louder. Says she, 
‘ It’s hy-sterikes, Miss Cinthy ; that’s all it is.’ 

“Wal, Cinthy she was kind o’ ’shamed, but for all 
that she couldn’t help herself. Sometimes evenin’s 
she’d be a settin’ with the cap’n, and she’d think she’d 
hear somebody a movin’ in his room overhead ; and 
she knowed it wa’n’t Quassia, ’cause Quassia was 
ironin’ in the kitchen. She took pains once or twice 
to find out that ’are. 

“ Wal, ye see, the cap’n’s room was the gret front 
upper chamber over the parlor, and then right oppi- 
site to it was the gret spare chamber where Cinthy 
slept. It was jest as grand as could be, with a gret 
four-post mahogany bedstead and damask curtains 
brought over from England ; but it was cold enough 
to freeze a white bear solid, — the way spare cham- 
bers allers is. Then there was the entry between, 
run straight through the house : one side was old 
Quassia’s room, and the other was a sort o’ store- 
room, where the old cap’n kep’ all sorts o’ traps. 

“ Wal, Cinthy she kep’ a hevin’ things happen and 
a seein’ things, till she didn’t railly know what was 
in it. Once when she come into the parlor jest at 


148 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


sundown, she was sure she see a white figure a van- j 
ishin’ out o’ the door that went towards the side 
entry. She said it was so dusk, that all she could see ! 
was jest this white figure, and it jest went out still as 
a cat as she come in. 

“ Wal, Cinthy didn’t like to speak to the cap’n 
about it. She was a close woman, putty prudent, 
Cinthy was. 

“ But one night, ’bout the middle o’ the week, this 
’ere thing kind o’ come to a crisis. 

“ Cinthy said she’d hen up putty late a sewin’ and 
a finishin’ off down in the parlor ; and the cap’n he 
sot up with her, and was consid’able cheerful and 
entertainin’, tellin’ her all about things over in the | 
Bermudys, and off to Chiny and Japan, and round 
the world ginerally. The storm that hed been a 
blowin’ all the week was about as furious as ever ; 
and the cap’n he stirred up a mess o’ flip, and hed it 
for her hot to go to bed on. He was a good-natured 
critter, and allers had feelin’s for lone women ; and I 
s’pose he knew ’twas sort o’ desolate for Cinthy. 

“ Wal, takin’ the flip so right the last thing afore 
goin’ to bed, she went right off to sleep as sound as 




She stood there , lookin' right at Cinthy — Page 149. 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 149 

a nut, and slep’ on till somewhere about mornin’, 
when she said somethin’ waked her broad awake in a 
I minute. Her eyes flew wide open like a spring, and 
! the storm hed gone down and the moon come out ; 
and there, standin’ right in the moonlight by her bed, 
was a woman jest as white as a sheet, with black hair 
hangin’ down to her waist, and the brightest, mourn 
fullest black eyes you ever see. She stood there 
lookin’ right at Cinthy ; and Cinthy thinks that was 
what waked her up ; ’cause, you know, ef anybody 
stands and looks steady at folks asleep it’s apt to 
wake ’em. 

“Any way, Cinthy said she felt jest as ef she was 
turnin’ to stone. She couldn’t move nor speak. 
She lay a minute, and then she shut her eyes, and 
begun to say her prayers ; and a minute after she 
opened ’em, and it was gone. 

“ Cinthy was a sensible gal, and one that allers 
hed her thoughts about her ; and she jest got up and 
put a shawl round her shoulders, and went first and 
looked at the doors, and they was both on ’em locked 
jest as she left ’em when she went to bed. Then 
she looked under the bed and in the closet, and 


13 * 


150 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


felt all round the room : where she couldn’t see she 
felt her way, and there wa’n’t nothin’ there. 

“ Wal, next mornin’ Cinthy got up and went 
home, and she hep’ it to herself a good while. ; 
Finally, one day when she was workin’ to our house | 
she told Hepsy about it, and Hepsy she told me.” 

“ Well, Sam,” we said, after a pause, in which we 
heard only the rustle of leaves and the ticking of i 
branches against each other, “ what do you suppose ! 
it was ? ” 

46 Wal, there ’tis : you know jest as much about ! 
it as I do. Hepsy told Cinthy it might ’a’ ben a j 
dream ; so it might, but Cinthy she was sure it 
wa’n’t a dream, ’cause she remembers plain hearin’ 
the old clock on the stairs strike four while she had 
her eyes open lookin’ at the woman ; and then she 
only shet ’em a minute, jest to say ‘ Now I lay me,’ 
and opened ’em and she was gone. 

“ Wal, Cinthy told Hepsy, and Hepsy she kep’ it 
putty close. She didn’t tell it to nobody except 
Aunt Sally Dickerson and the Widder Bije Smith 
and your Grandma Badger and the minister’s wife ; 
and they every one o’ ’em ’greed it ought to be kep’ 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 151 


close, ’cause it would make talk. Wal, come spring, 
somehow or other it seemed to ’a’ got all over Old- 
town. I heard on ’t to the store and up to the tav- 
ern ; and Jake Marshall he says to me one day, 
‘ What’s this ’ere about the cap’n’s house ? ’ Anri 
the Widder Loker she says to me, 4 There’s ben a 
ghost seen in the cap’n’s house ; 1 and I heard on ’t 
clear over to Needham and Sherburne. 

44 Some o’ the women they drew themselves up 
putty stiff and proper. Your Aunt Lois was one on 
’em. 

44 4 Ghost,’ says she ; 4 don’t tell me ! Perhaps it 
would be best ef ’twas a ghost,’ says she. She 
didn’t think there ought to be no sich doin’s in no- 
body’s house ; and your grandma she shet her up, 
and told her she didn’t oughter talk so.” 

44 Talk how ? ” said I, interrupting Sam with won- 
der. 44 What did Aunt Lois mean ? ” 

44 Why, you see,” said Sam mysteriously, 44 there 
alters is folks in every town that’s jest like the 
Sadducees in old times : they won’t believe in angel 
nor sperit, no way you can fix it ; and ef things is 
seen and done in a house, why, they say, it’s ’cause 


152 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


there’s somebody there; there’s some sort o’ deviltry; 
or trick about it. 

“ So the story got round that there was a woman 
kep’ private in Cap’n Brown’s house, and that he ft 
brought her from furrin parts ; and it growed and 
growed, till there was all sorts o’ ways o’ tellin on ’t. 

“ Some said they’d seen her a settin’ at an open 
winder. Some said that moonlight nights they’d , 
seen her a walkin’ out in the back garden kind o’ in i 
and out ’mong the bean-poles and squash-vines. 

“ You see, it come on spring and summer ; and the i 
winders o’ the Cap’n Brown house stood open, and 
folks was all a watchin’ on ’em day and night. Aunt j 
Sally Dickerson told the minister’s wife that she'd ■ 
seen in plain daylight a woman a settin’ at the ■ 
chamber winder atween four and five o’clock in the I 
mornin’, — jist a settin’ a lookin’ out and a doin’ ; 
nothin’, like anybody else. She was very white and ! 
pale, and had black eyes. 

“ Some said that it was a nun the cap’n had j 
brought away from a Roman Catholic convent in 
Spain, and some said he’d got her out o’ the Inquisi- 
tion. 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 153 


“ Aunt Sally said she thought the minister ought 
to call and inquire why she didn’t come to meetin’, 
and who she was, and all about her : ’cause, you see, 
she said it might be all right enough ef folks only 
know’d jest how things was ; but ef they didn’t, 
why, folks will talk.” 

“ Well, did the minister do it ? ” 

“ What, Parson Lothrop ? Wal, no, he didn’t. 
He made a call on the cap’n in a regular way, and 
asked arter his health and all his family. But the 
cap’n he seemed jest as jolly and chipper as a spring 
robin, and he gin the minister some o’ his old 
Jamaiky ; and the minister he come away and said 
he didn’t see nothin’ ; and no he didn’t. Folks 
never does see nothin’ when they aint’ lookin’ where 
’tis. Fact is, Parson Lothrop wa’n’t fond o’ inter- 
ferin’ ; he was a master hand to slick things over. 
Your grandma she used to mourn about it, ’cause 
she said he never gin no p’int to the doctrines ; but 
’twas all of a piece, he kind o’ took every thing the 
smooth way. 

“ But your grandma she believed in the ghost, 
and so did Lady Lothrop. I was up to her house 


154 


OEDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


t’other day fixin’ a door-knob, and says she, 4 Sam 
your wife told me a strange story about the Cap’n 
Brown house.’ 

44 4 Yes, ma’am, she did,’ says I. 

44 4 Well, what do you think of it ? ’ says she. 

44 4 Wal, sometimes I think, and then agin I don’t 
know,’ says I. 4 There’s Cinthy she’s a member o’ 
the church and a good pious gal,’ says I. 

44 4 Yes, Sam,’ says Lady Lothrop, says she ; 4 and 
Sam,’ says she, 4 it is jest like something that hap- 
pened once to my grandmother when she was livin’ 
in the old Province House in Bostin.’ Says she, 
4 These ’ere things is the mysteries of Providence, 
and it’s jest as well not to have ’em too much talked 
about.’ 

44 4 Jest so,’ says I, — 4 jest so. That ’are’s what 
every woman I’ve talked with says ; and I guess, fust 
and last, I’ve talked with twenty, — good, safe 
church-members, — and they’s every one o’ opinion 
that this ’ere oughtn’t to be talked about. Why, 
over to the deakin’s t’other night we went it all 
over as much as two or three hours, and we con- 
cluded that the best way was to keep quite still 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 155 


about it ; and that’s jest what they say over to Need- 
ham and Sherburne. I’ve been a}] round a hushin’ 
this ’ere up, and I hain’t found but a few people that 
hedn’t the particulars one way or another.’ This ’ere 
was what I says to Lady Lothrop. The fact, was, I 
never did see no report spread so, nor make sich sort 
o’ sarchin’s o’ heart, as this ’ere. It railly did beat 
all ; ’cause, ef ’twas a ghost, why there was the p’int 
proved, ye see. Cinthy’s a church-member, and she 
see it, and got right up and sarched the room : but 
then agin, ef ’twas a woman, why that ’are was kind 
o’ awful ; it give cause, ye see, for thinkin’ all sorts 
o’ things. There was Cap’ll Brown, to be sure, he 
wa’n’t a church-member ; but yet he was as honest 
and regular a man as any goin’, as fur as any on us 
could see. To be sure, nobody know’d where he 
3ome from, but that wa’n’t no reason agin’ him : this 
’ere might a ben a crazy sister, or some poor critter 
that he took out o’ the best o’ motives; and the 
Scriptur’ says, 4 Charity hopeth all things.’ But 
then, ye see, folks will talk, — that ’are’s the pester 
o’ all these things, — and they did some on ’em 
talk consid’able strong about the cap’n ; but some- 


156 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


how or other, there didn’t nobody come to the p’int 
o’ facin’ on him down, and sayin’ square out, 4 Cap’n 
Brown, have you got a woman in your house, or 
hain’t you ? or is it a ghost, or what is it ? ’ Folks 
somehow never does come to that. Ye see, there was 
the cap’n so respectable, a settin’ up every Sunday 
there in his pew, with his ruffles round his hands and 
his red broadcloth cloak and his cocked hat. Why, 
folks’ hearts sort o’ failed ’em when it come to sayin’ 
any thing right to him. They thought and kind o’ 
whispered round that the minister or the deakins 
oughter do it : but Lordy massy ! ministers, I s’pose, 
has feelin's like the rest on us ; they don’t want to 
eat all the hard cheeses that nobody else won’t eat. 
Anyhow, there wasn’t nothin’ said direct to the 
cap’n ; and jest for want o’ that all the folks in Old- 
town kep’ a bilin’ and a bilin’ like a kettle o’ soap, 
till it seemed all the time as if they’d bile over. 

“ Some o’ the wimmen tried to get somethin’ out 
o’ Quassy. Lordy massy ! you might as well ’a’ tried 
to get it out an old tom-turkey, that’ll strut and 
gobble and quitter, and drag his wings on the ground, 
and fly at you, but won’t say nothin’. Quassy she 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 157 


screeched her queer sort o’ laugh ; and she told ’em 
that they was a maldn’ fools o’ themselves, and that 
the cap’n’s matters wa’n’t none o’ their bisness; 
and that was true enough. As to goin’ into Quas- 
sia’s room, or into any o’ the store-rooms or closets 
she kep’ the keys of, you might as well hev gone 
into a lion’s den. She kep’ all her places locked up 
tight; and there was no gettin’ at nothin’ in the 
Cap’n Brown house, else I believe some o’ the wim- 
men would ’a’ sent a sarch- warrant.” 

“ Well,” said I, “what came of it? Didn’t any- 
body ever find out ? ” 

“ Wal,” said Sam, “ it come to an end sort o’, and 
didn’t come to an end. It was jest this ’ere way. 
You see, along in October, jest in the cider-makin’ 



time, Abel Flint he was took down 


and died. You ’member the Flint house : it stood 
on a little rise o’ ground jest lookin’ over towards 
the Brown house. Wal, there was Aunt Sally 
Dickerson and the Widder Bije Smith, they set up 
with the corpse. He was laid out in the back cham- 
ber, you see, over the milk-room and kitchen ; but 
there was cold victuals and sicli in the front chamber, 


14 


158 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


where the watchers sot. Wal, now, Aunt Sally she 
told me that between three and four o’clock she 
heard wheels a rumblin’, and she went to the winder, 
and it was clear starlight ; and she see a coach come 
up to the Cap’n Brown house ; and she see the cap’ll 
come out bringin’ a woman all wrapped in a cloak, 
and old Quassy came arter with her arms full o’ bun- 
dles ; and he put her into the kerridge, and shet her in, 
and it driv off ; and she see old Quassy stand lookin’ 
over the fence arter it. She tried to wake up the 
widder, but ’twas towards mornin’, and the widder 
allers was a hard sleeper ; so there wa’n’t no witness 
but her.” 

“ Well, then, it wasn’t a ghost,” said I, “ after all, 
and it was a woman.” 

“ Wal, there ’tis, you see. Folks don’t know that 
’are yit, ’cause there it’s jest as broad as ’tis long. 
Now, look at it. There’s Cinthy, she’s a good, pious 
gal : she locks her chamber-doors, both on ’em, and 
goes to bed, and wakes up in the night, and there’s a 
woman there. She jest shets her eyes, and the wo- 
man’s gone. She gits up and looks, and both doors is 
locked jest as she left ’em. That ’ere woman wa’n’t 


THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWN HOUSE. 159 


flesh and blood now, no way, — not such flesh and 
blood as we knows on ; but then they say Cinthy 
might hev dreamed it ! 

“ Wal, now, look at it t’other way. There’s Aunt 
Sally Dickerson ; she’s a good woman and a church- 
member : wal, she sees a woman in a cloak with all 
her bundles brought out o’ Cap’n Brown’s house, and 
put into a kerridge, and driy off, atween three and 
four o’clock in the mornin’. Wal, that ’ere shows 
there must ’a’ ben a real live woman kep’ there pri- 
vately, and so what Cinthy saw wasn’t a ghost. 

“ Wal, now, Cinthy says Aunt Sally might ’a’ 
dreamed it, — that she got her head so full o’ stories 
about the Cap’n Brown house, and watched it till she 
got asleep, and hed this ’ere dream ; and, as % re 
didn’t nobody else see it, it might ’a’ ben, you know. 
Aunt Sally’s clear she didn’t dream, and then agin 
Cinthy’s clear she didn’t dream ; but which on ’em 
was awake, or which on ’em was asleep, is what ain't 
settled in Oldtown yet.” 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 



ES, this ’ere’s Tekawampait’s grave,” 
said Sam Lawson, sitting leisurely j 
down on an ancient grass-grown 
mound, ornamented by a mossy black i 
slate-stone slab, with a rudely-carved ; 
cherub head and wings on top. 

“ And who was Tekawampait ? ” 

I wan ter know, now, if your granny hain’t told 
you who Tekawampait was?” said Sam, pushing 
back his torn straw hat, and leaning against the old 
slanting gravestone. 

“ No, she never told us.” 

“ Wal, ye see, Tekawampait he was the fust Chris- 
tian Indian minister o’ the gospel there was in Old- 
town. He was a full-blooded Indian, but he was as 


160 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 161 

good a Christian as there was goin’ ; and he was 
settled here over the church in Oldtown afore Par- 
son Peabody; and Parson Peabody he come afore 
Parson Lothrop ; and a very good minister Teka- 
wampait was too. Folks hes said that there couldn’t 
nothin’ be made o’ Indians ; that they was nothin’ 
but sort o’ bears and tigers a walkin’ round on their 
hind legs, a seekin’ whom they might devour ; but 
Parson Eliot he didn’t think so. 4 Christ died for 
them as wal as for me,’ says he ; 4 and jest give ’em 
the gospel,’ says he, 4 and the rest’ll come along o’ 
itself.’ And so he come here to Oldtown, and sot 
up a sort o’ log-hut right on the spot where the old 
Cap’n Brown house is now. Them two great elm- 
trees that’s a grown now each side o’ the front gate 
was two little switches then, that two Indians brought 
up over their shoulders, and planted there for friend- 
ship trees, as they called ’em ; and now look what 
trees they be ! He used to stand under that ’are big 
oak there, and preach to the Indians, long before 
there was any meetin’-house to speak in here in 
Oldtown. 

44 Wal, now, I tell you, it took putty good courage 


14 * 


162 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


in Parson Eliot to do that ’are. I tell you, in them ► 
days it took putty consid’able faith to see any thing \ 
in an Indian but jest a wild beast. Folks can’t tell 
by seein’ on ’em now days what they was in the old 
times when all the settlements was new, and the In- 1 
dians was stark, starin’ wild, a ravin’ and tarin’ round 
in the woods, and a fightin’ each other and a fightin’ 
the white folks. Lordy massy ! the stories I’ve heard j 
women tell in their chimbley-corners about the 
things that used to happen when they was little was 
enough to scare the very life out o’ ye.” 

“ Oh, do, do tell us some of them ! ” said Henry 
and I. 

“ Lordy massy, boys : why, ye wouldn’t sleep for a ; 
week. Why, ye don’t know. Why, the Indians in 
them days wa’n’t like no critter ye ever did see. 
They was jest the horridest, paintedest, screechin’est, j 
eassedest critters you ever heard on. They was jest j 
as artful as sarpents, and crueller than any tigers. I 
Good Dr. Cotton Mather calls ’em divils, and he was ] 
a meek, good man, Dr. Cotton was ; but they cut up i 
so in his days, it’s no wonder he thought they was j 
divils, and not folks. Why, they kep’ the whole 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 


163 


country in a broil for years and years. Nobody 
knowed when they was safe ; for they were so sly and 
cunnin’, and always watchin’ behind fences and 
bushes, and ready when a body was a least thinkin’ 
on’t to be down on ’em. I’ve heard Abiel Jones tell 
how his father’s house was burnt down at the 
time the Indians burnt Deerfield. About every house 
in the settlement was burnt to the ground; and 
then another time they burnt thirty-two houses in 
Springfield, — the minister’s house and all, with all 
his library (and books was sca’ce in them days) ; 
but the Indians made a clean sweep on’t. They 
burnt all the houses in Wendham down to the 
ground ; and they came down in Lancaster, and 
burnt ever so many houses, and carried off forty or 
fifty people with ’em into the woods. 

“ There was Mr. Rolandson, the minister, they 
burnt his house, and carried off Mis’ Rolandson and 
all the children. There was Jerushy Pierce used 
to work in his family and do washin’ and chores, 
she’s told me about it. Jerushy she was 1 away to 
her uncle’s that night, so she wa’n’t took. Ye see, 
the Lancaster folks had been afeard the Indians’d 


164 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


be down on ’em, and so Parson Rolandson he’d* 
gone on to Boston to get help for ’em ; and when 
he come back the mischief was all done. Jerushy 
said in all her life she never see nothin’ so pitiful 
as that ’are poor man’s face when she met him, jest! 
as he come to the place where the house stood. At 
fust he didn’t say a word, she said, but he looked 
kind o’ dazed. Then he sort o’ put his hand to - 
his forehead, and says he, 4 My God, my God, help 
me ! ’ Then he tried to ask her about it, but he 
couldn’t but jest speak. 4 Jerushy,’ says he, ‘can’t; 
you tell me, — where be they?’ 4 Wal,’ says Je- 
rushy, 4 they’ve been carried off.’ And with that 
he fell right down and moaned and groaned. 4 Oh ! ’ I 
says he, 4 I’d rather heard that they were at peace ! 
with the Lord.’ And then he’d wring his hands : i 
4 What shall I do ? What shall I do ? ’ 

44 Wal, ’twa’n’t long after this that the Indians was 
down on Medford, and burnt half the houses in town, 
and killed fifty or sixty people there. Then they ! 
came down on Northampton, but got driv’ back ; but 
then they burnt up five houses, and killed four or 
five of the folks afore they got the better of ’em 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 


165 


there. Then they burnt all the houses in Groton, 
meetin’-house and all ; and the pisen critters they 
hollared and triumphed over the people, and called out 
to ’em, 4 What will you do for a house to pray in 
now? we’ve burnt your meetin’-house.’ The fightin’ 
was goin’ on all over the country at the same time. 
The Indians set Marlborough afire, and it was all 
blazin’ at once, the same day that some others of ’em 
was down on Springfield, and the same day Cap’ll 
Pierce, with forty-nine white men and twenty-six 
Christian Indians, got drawn into an ambush, and 
every one of ’em killed. Then a few days after this 
they burnt forty houses at Rehoboth, and a little 
while after they burnt thirty more at Providence. 
And then when good Cap’n Wadsworth went with 
seventy men to help the people in Sudbury, the 
Indians came pourin’ round ’em in the woods like so 
many wolves, and killed all but four or five on ’em ; 
and those poor fellows had better hev been killed, 
for the cruel critters jest tormented ’em to death, and 
mocked and jeered at their screeches and screams like 
so many divils. Then they went and broke loose on 
Andover ; and they was so cruel they couldn’t even 


166 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


let the dumb critters alone. They cut out the 
tongues of oxen and cows, and left ’em bleedin’, and 
some they fastened up in barns and burnt alive. 
There wa’n’t no sort o’ diviltry they wa’n’t up to. 
Why, it got to be so in them days that folks couldn’t 
go to bed in peace without startin’ every time they 
turned over for fear o’ the Indians. Ef they heard 
a noise in the night, or ef the wind squealed and 
howled, as the wind will, they’d think sure enough 
there was that horrid yell a cornin’ down chimbley. 

“ There was Delily Severence ; she says to me, 
speakin’ about them times, says she, 4 Why, Mr. Law- 
son, you’ve no idee ! Why, that ’are screech,’ says 
she, ‘ wa’n’t like no other noise in heaven above, or 
earth beneath, or water under the earth,’ says she. 
‘ When it started ye out o’ bed between two or three 
o’clock in the mornin’, and all your children a cryin’, 
and the Indians a screechin’ and yellin’ and a tossin’ 
up firebrands, fust at one window and then at another, 
why,’ says she, ‘ Mr. Lawson, it was more like hell 
upon earth than any thing I ever heard on.’ 

“Ye see, they come down on Delily’s house when 
she was but jest up arter her third baby. That ’are 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 


167 


woman hed a handsome head o’ hair as ever ye see, 
black as a crow’s wing ; and it turned jest as white 
as a table-cloth, with nothin’ but the fright o’ that 
night.” 

“ What did they do with her ? ” 

“ Oh ! they took her and her poor little gal and boy, 
that wa’n’t no older than you be, and went off with 
’em to Canada. The troubles them poor critters 
went through ! Her husband he was away that night ; 
and well he was, else they’d a tied him to a tree and 
stuck pine slivers into him and sot ’em afire, and cut 
gret pieces out ’o his flesh, and filled the places with 
hot coals and ashes, and all sich kind o’ things they 
did to them men prisoners, when they catched ’em. 
Delily was thankful enough he was away ; but they 
took her and the children off through the ice and 
snow, jest half clothed and shiverin’ ; and when her 
baby cried and worried, as it nat’rally would, the old 
Indian jest took it by its heels, and dashed its brains 
out agin a tree, and threw it into the crotch of a tree, 
and left it dangling there ; and then they would mock 
and laugh at her, and mimic her baby’s crying, and 
try every way they could to aggravate her. They 


168 


OLDTOWK FIRESIDE STORIES. 


used to beat and torment her children right before 
her eyes, and pull their hair out, and make believe 
that they was goin’ to burn ’em alive, jest for nothin’ 
but to frighten and worry her.” 

“ I wonder,” said I, “ she ever got back alive.” 

“ Wal, the wimmen in them times hed a sight o’ 
wear in ’em. They was resolute, strong, hard- 
workin’ wimmen. They could all tackle a hoss, or load 
and fire a gun. They was brought up hard, and they 
was used to troubles and dangers. It’s jest as folks 
gets used to things how they takes ’em. In them 
days folks was brought up to spect trouble ; they 
didn't look for no less. Why, in them days the men 
allers took their guns into the field when they went 
to hoe corn, and took their guns with ’em to meetin’ 
Sundays ; and the wimmen they kep’ a gun loaded 
where they knew where to find it ; and when trouble 
come it was jest what they spected, and they was put 
even with it. That’s the sort o’ wimmen they was. 
Wal, Delily and her children was brought safe 
through at last, but they hed a hard time on’t.” 

“ Tell us some more stories about Indians, Sam,” 
we said, with the usual hungry impatience of boys for 
a story. 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 169 

“ Wal, let me see,” said Sam, with his hat pushed 
back and his eyes fixed dreamily on the top of Eliot’s 
oak, which was now yellow with the sunset glory, — 
“ let me see. I hain’t never told ye about Col. Eph 
Miller, hev I ?” 

“ No, indeed. What about him ? ” 

“Wal, he was took prisoner by the Indians; and 
they was goin’ to roast him alive arter their fashion, 
and he gin ’em the slip.” 

“ Do tell us all about it.” 

“ Wal, you see, Deliverance Scranton over to Sher- 
burne, she’s Col. Eph’s daughter ; and she used to 
hear her father tell about that, and she’s told me 
time and agin about it. It was this way, — 

“ You see, there hedn’t ben no alarm about Indians 
for some time, and folks hed got to feelin’ kind o’ easy, 
as folks will. When there don’t nothin’ happen for 
a good while, and it keeps a goin’ on so, why, you 
think finally there won’t nothin’ happen ; and so it 
was with Col. Eph and his wife. She told Deliv- 
erance that the day before she reely hed forgot 
all about that there was any Indians in the country ; 
and she’d been out after spruce and wintergreen and 


15 


170 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


hemlock, and got over her brass kettle to bile for 
beer ; and the child’n they brought in lots o’ wild 
grapes that they gathered out in the woods ; and 
they said when they came home that they thought 
they see an Indian a lyin’ all along squirmin’ through 
the bushes, and peekin’ out at ’em like a snake, but 
they wa’n’t quite sure. Faith, the oldest gal, she 
was sure she see him quite plain ; but ’Bijah (he was 
Col. Eph’s oldest boy) he wa’n’t so sure. 

“ Anyway, they didn’t think no more about it ; 
and that night they hed prayers and went off to 
bed. 

“ Arterwards, Col. Eph he said he remembered 
the passage o’ Scriptur’ he read that night ; it was, 
‘ The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the 
strong.’ He didn’t notice it much when he read it ; 
but he allers spoke of it arterwards as a remarkable 
providence that that ’are passage should have come 
jest so that night. 

“ Wal, atween twelve and one o’clock they was 
waked up by the most awful screechin’ that ever you 
heard, as if twenty thousand devils was upon ’em. 
Mis’ Miller she was out o’ bed in a minit, all stand- 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 


171 


in’. 4 O husband, husband, the Indians are on us ! ’ 
says she ; and sure enough they was. The children, 
’Bijah and Faith come a runnin’ in. 4 O father, 
father ! what shall we do ? * 

“ Col. Eph was a man that allers knew in a minit 
what to do, and he kep’ quite cool. 4 My dear,’ says 
he to his wife, 4 you take the children, and jest run 
with ’em right out the buttery-door through the high 
corn, and run as fast as you can over to your father 
Stebbins’, and tell him to rouse the town ; and Bije,’ 
says he to the boy, ‘you jest get into the belfry win- 
dow, and ring the boh with all your might, says he. 

4 And I’ll stay a^d fight ’em off till the folks come.’ 

44 All this while the Indians was a yellin’ and 
screechin’ and a wavin’ fire-brands front of the 
bouse. Col. Eph he stood a lookin’ through a hole in 
the shutter aud a sightin’ his gun while he was a 
talkin’. He see that they’d been a pilin’ up a great 
pile o’ dry wood agin the door. But the fust Indian 
that came up to put fire to’t was shot right down 
while he was a speakin . 

“ Wal, Mis’ Miller and Faith and Bije wa’n’t long 
a dressin’, you may believe ; and they jest put on 


172 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


dark cloaks, and they jest streaked it out through 
the buttery-door ! There was thick pole-beans quite 
up to the buttery-door, and then a field o’ high corn, 
so that they was hid, and the way they run wasn’t 
slow, I tell you. 

“ But Col. Eph he hed to stop so to load that they 
got the pile o’ brush afire, though he shot down 
three or four on ’em, and that was some comfort, i 
But the long and the short o’ the matter was, that 
they driv the door in at last, and came a whoopin’ 
and yellin’ into the house. 

“ Wal, they took Col. Eph, and then went search- j 
in’ round to find somebody else ; but jest then the 
meetin’-house bell begun to ring, and that scart ’em, 1 
and they took Col. Eph and made off with him. He 
hedn’t but jest time to get into his clothes and get j 
his shoes on, when they hurried him off. They 
didn’t do nothin’ to him jest then, you see, these 
Indians was so cur’ous. If a man made a good ! 
fight, and killed three or four on ’em afore they could ; 
take him, they sot great store by him, and called 
him a brave man. And so they was ’mazin’ careful 
of Col. Eph, and treated him quite polite for Indians ; 


COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 


173 


but he knew the ways on ’em well enough to know 
what it was all for. They wanted a real brave man 
to burn alive and stick slivers into and torment, and 
Col. Eph was jest the pattern for ’em, and his fight- 
in’ so brave made him all the better for what they 
wanted. 

“Wal, he was in hopes the town would be roused 
in time for some of ’em to come arter him ; but the 
Indians got the start of ’em, and got ’way off in the 
woods afore people hed fairly come together and 
found out what the matter was. There was Col. 
Eph’s house a blazin’ and a lightin’ up all the coun- 
try for miles round ; and the colonel he said it come 
ruther hard on him to be lighted on his way through 
the woods by such a bonfire. 

“ Wal, by mornin’ they come to one o’ their 
camps, and there they hed a great rejoicin’ over him. 
They was going to hev a great feast, and a good time 
a burnin’ on him ; and they tied him to a tree, and 
sot an Indian to watch him while they went out to 
cut pine knots and slivers to do him with. 

‘Wal, as I said, Col. Eph was a brave man, and a 
man that always kep’ his thoughts about him ; and so 


174 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


he kep’ a workin’ and a workin’ with the withs that 
was round his hands, and a prayin’ in his heart to 
the Lord, till he got his right hand free. Wal, he 
didn’t make no move, but kep’ a loosenin’ and a 
loosenin’ little by little, keepin’ his eye on the Indian 
who sot there on the ground by him. 

“ Now, Col. Eph hed slipped his feet into his Sun- 
day shoes that stood there by the bed and hed great 
silver shoe-buckles ; and there was a providence in 
his doin’ so, for, ye see, Indians are ’mazin’ fond o’ 
shiny things. And the old Indian he was took with 
the shine o’ these shoe-buckles, and he thought he 
might as well hev ’em as anybody ; so he jest laid 
down his tommyhawk, and got down on his knees, 
and was workin’ away as earnest as could be to get 
off the buckles, and Col. Eph he jest made a dart 
forward and picked up the tommyhawk, and split 
open the Indian’s skull with one blow : then he cut 
the withs that was round his legs, and in a minute 
he was off on the run with the tommyhawk in his 
hand. There was three Indians give chase to him, 
but Col. Eph he kep’ ahead of ’em. He said while 
he was a runnin’ he was cryin,’ and callin’ on the Lord 



« He was took with the shine o' these shoe-buckles." — Page 174. 



COLONEL EPH’S SHOE-BUCKLES. 


175 


with all his might, and the words come into his mind 
he read at prayers the night afore, 4 The race is not 
to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.’ 

“ At last he see the Indians gained on him ; and he 
faced round suddenly, and struck the nighest one 
smack on the head with his tommyhawk. Then 
when the next one come up he cut him down too ; 
and the third one, when he see both the others cut 
down, and Col. Eph cornin’ full blaze towards him 
with his tommyhawk a swingin’, he jest turned and 
run for dear life. Then Col. Eph he turned and cut 
for the settlement. He run, and he run, and he run, 
he didn’t well know how long, till, finally, he was 
clear tuckered out, and he jest dropped down under a 
tree and slept ; and he lay there all the rest of that 
day, and all night, and never woke till the next day 
about sundown. 

“ Then he woke up, and found he was close by 
home, and John Stebbins, his wife’s father, and a 
whole party, was out lookin’ for him. 

“ Old Col. Eph used to tell the story as long as he 
lived, and the tears used to run down his cheeks 
when he told it. 


176 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ 4 There’s a providence in every thing,’ he used to 
say, 4 even down to shoe-buckles. Ef my Sunday ; 
shoes hadn’t happened to ’a’ set there so I could ’a’ 
slipped into ’em, I couldn’t ’a’ killed that Indian, 
and I shouldn’t ’a’ been here to-day.’ Wal, boys, he 
was in the right on’t. Some seem to think the Lord 
don’t look out only for gret things, but, ye see, little 
things is kind o’ hinges that gret ones turns on. 
They say, take care o’ pennies, and dollars’ll take care 
o’ themselves. It’s jest so in every thing ; and, ef the 
Lord don’t look arter little things, he ain’t so gret as 
they say, anyway. 

44 Wal, wal,” said Sam in conclusion, 44 now, who’d 
’a’ thought that anybody could ’a’ made any thing 
out o’ Indians ? Yet there ’twas. All them Martha 
Vineyard Indians turned Christians, and there was 
Indian preachers and Indian teachers ; and they reely 
did settle down, and get to be quite like folks. But 
I tell you, boys, it took faith to start with.” 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 



ftd T was Saturday afternoon, — time of 
|ll | blessed memory to boys, — and we were 
'j ; | free for a ramble after huckleberries ; 
and, with our pails in hand, were making 
the best of our way to a noted spot 
where that fruit was most abundant. 

Sam was with us, his long legs striding over the - 

i'; A 

ground at a rate that kept us on a brisk trot, though 
he himself was only lounging leisurely, with his 
usual air of contemplation. 

44 Look ’ere, boys,” he suddenly said, pausing and 
resting his elbow on the top of a rail-fence, 44 we 
shall jest hev to go back and go round by Deakin 
Blodgett’s barn.” 

44 Wh}' so ? ” we both burst forth in eager tones. 


177 


178 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Wal, don’t ye see the deakin’s turned in his 
bull into this ’ere lot ? ” 

“ Who cares ? ” said I. “ I ain’t afraid.” 

“Nor I,” said Harry. “ Look at him : he looks 
mild enough : he won’t hurt us.” 

“ Not as you knows on,” said Sam ; “ and then, 
agin, you don’t know, — nobody never knows, what 
one o’ them ’ere critters will do : they’s jest the most 
contrary critters ; and ef you think they’re goin’ to 
do one way they ’re sure to do t’other. I could tell ye 
a story now that’d jest make yer bar stan’ on eend.” 

Of course we wanted to have our hair stand on 
end, and beset Sam for the story ; but he hung off. 

“ Lordy massy ! boys, jest let’s wait till ye’ve got yer 
huckleberries : yer granny won’t like it ef ye don’t 
bring her none, and Hepsy she’ll be in my har, — 
what’s left on’t,” said Sam, taking off his old torn 
hat, and rubbing the loose shock of brash and griz- 
zled hair. 

So we turned and made a detour , leaving the bull 
on the right, though we longed amazingly to have a 
bout with him, for the fun of the thing, and mentally 
resolved to try it when our mentor was not round. 

P 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 


179 


It all comes back to me again, — the image of that 
huckleberry-pasture, interwoven with fragrance of 
sweet-fern, and the ground under our feet embroidered 
with star-moss and wintergreen, or foamy patches of 
• mossy frost-work, that crushed and crackled delight- 
fully beneath our feet. Every now and then a tall, 
straight fire-lily — black, spotted in its centre — rose 
like a little jet of flame ; and we gathered it eagerly, 
though the fierce August sun wilted it in our hands. 
The hucklebeny-bushes, bending under their purple 
weight, we gathered in large armfuls, and took them 
under the shadow of the pine-trees, that we might 
strip them at our leisure, without being scorched by 
the intense glare of the sun. Armful after armful 
we carried and deposited in the shade, and then sat 
down to the task of picking them off into our pails. 
It was one of those New-England days hotter than 
the tropics. Not a breath of air was stirring, not a 
bird sang a note, not a sound was heard, except the 
drowsy grating of the locusts. 

“ Well, now, Sam, now tell us that story about 
the bull. ,, 

“ Lordy massy, how hot ’tis ! ” said Sam, lying 


180 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


back, and resting on the roots of a tree, with his 
hands folded under his head. “ I’m all in a drip of 
sweat.” 

“Well, Sam, we’ll pick off your berries, if you’ll 
talk.” 

“ Wall, wall, be kerful yer don’t git no green 
ones in among ’em, else Hepsy ’ll be down on me. 
She’s drefful partikelar, she is. Every thing has to 
he jest so. Ef it ain’t, you’ll hear on’t. Lordy 
massy ! boys, she’s always telling me I don’t do noth- 
in’ for the support of the family. I leave it to you 
if I didn’t ketch her a nice mess o’ fish a Tuesday. 
I tell her folks can’t expect to roll in money, and 
allers to have every thing jess ’z they want it. We 
brought nothin’ into the world with us, and it’s 
sartain we ken carry nothin’ out ; and, having food 
and raiment, we ought to be content. We have 
ben better offn we be now. Why, boys, I’ve seen 
the time that I’ve spent thirty-seven cents a week 
for nutmegs ; but Hepsy hain’t no gratitude : such 
folks hez to be brought down. Take care, now, yer 
ain’t a-putting green ones in ; be yer ? ” 

“Sam, we sha’n’t put in any at all, if you don’t 
tell us that story.” 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 


181 


“ Lordy massy ! yon young ones, there ain’t never 
no contentin’ yer, ef a fellow was to talk to the mil- 
lennium. Wonder now if there is going to be any 
millennium. Wish I’d waited, and been born in 
them days, ’spect things would a sorter come along 
easier. Wall, I shall git through some way, I 
s’pose.” 

“ Sam,” said I, sitting back, “ we’re putting all our 
berries into your pail ; and, if you don’t begin to tell 
us a story, we won’t do it.” 

“ Lordy massy ! boys, I’m kind o’ collectin’ my 
idees. Ye have to talk a while to git a-goin’, 
everybody does. Wal, about this ’ere story. Ye 
’member that old brown house, up on the hill there, 
that we saw when we come round the corner? 
That ’are was where old Mump Moss used to live. 
Old Mump was consid’able of a nice man : he took 
in Ike Sanders, Mis’ Moss’s sister’s boy, to help him 
on the farm, and did by him pretty much ez he did 
by his own. Bill Moss, Mump’s boy, he was a con- 
trary kind o’ critter, and he was allers a-hectorin’ 
Ike. He was allers puttin’ off the heaviest end of 

every thing on to him. He’d shirk his work, and git 
16 


182 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


it off on to Ike every way he could. And he allers 
threw it up at him that he was eatin’ his father’s 
bread ; and he watched every mouthful he ate, as if 
he hated to see it go down. Wal, ye see, for all that, 
Ike he growed up tall and strong, and a real handsome 
young feller; and everybody liked him. And Bill he 
was so gritty and contrairy, that his own mother and 
sisters couldn’t stan’ him ; and he was allers a-flingin’ 
it up at ’em that they liked Ike more’n they did him. 
Finally his mother she said to him one day, ‘ Why 
shouldn’t I,’ sez she, ‘ when Ike’s allers pleasant to 
me, and doin’ every thing he ken fur me, and you 
don’t do nothin’ but scold.’ That ’are, you see, was 
a kind o’ home-thrust, and Bill he didn’t like Ike a 
bit the better for that. He did every thing he could 
to plague him, and hector him, and sarcumvent him, 
and set people agin him. 

“ Wal, ye see, ’twas the old story about Jacob and 
Laban over agin. Every thing that Ike put his 
hand to kind o’ prospered. Everybody liked him, 
everybody hed a good word for him, everybody 
helped grease his wheels. Wal, come time when 
he was twenty-one, old Mump lie gin him a settin’- 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 


183 


out. He gin him a freedom suit o’ olothes, and 
he gin him a good cow, and Mis’ Moss she knit 
him up a lot o’ stockings, and the gals they made him 
up his shirts. Then, Ike he got a place with Squire 
Wells, and got good wages ; and he bought a little 
bit o’ land, with a house on it, on Squire Wells’s 
place, and took a mortgage on’t, to work off. He 
used to work his own land, late at night and early 
in the mornin’, over and above givin’ good days’ 
works to the squire ; and the old squire he sot all 
the world by him, and said he hedn’t hed sich a man 
to work since he didn’t know when. 

“ Wal, a body might ha’ thought that when Bill had 
a got him out o’ the house, he might ha’ ben satisfied, 
but he wasn’t. He was an ugly fellow, Bill Moss 
was ; and a body would ha’ thought that every thing 
good that happened to Ike was jest so much took 
from him. Come to be young men, growed up to- 
gether, and waitin’ on the gals round, Ike he was 
pretty apt to cut Bill out. Yer see, though Bill was 
goin’ to have the farm, and all old Mump’s money, 
he warn’t pleasant-spoken ; and so, when the gals 
got a chance, they’d allers rather go with Ike than 


184 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


him. Finalty, there was Delily Sawin, she was 
about the handsomest girl there was round, and 
she hed all the fellers arter her ; and her way was 
to speak ’em all fair, and keep ’em all sort o’ waitin’ .» 
and hopin’, till she got ready to make her mind up. ' 
She’d entertain Bill Saturday night, and she’d tell 
Ike he might come Sunday night ; and so Ike he was 
well pleased, and Bill he growled. 

“ Wal, there come along a gret cattle-show. 
Squire Wells he got it up : it was to be the gretest 
kind of a time, and Squire Wells he give money i 
fur prizes. There was to be a prize on the best 
cow, and the best bull, and the best ox, and the 
best horse, and the biggest punkins and squashes ' 
and beets, and there was a prize for the best loaf o’ 
bread, and the best pair o’ stockin’s, and the hand- 
somest bed-quilt, and the rest o’ women’s work. 
Wal, yer see, there was a gret to-do about the 
cattle-show; and the wagons they came in from all 
around, — ten miles ; and the gals all dressed up in 
their best bunnits, and they had a ball in the evenin’. 
Wal, ye see, it so happened that Bill and Ike each 
on ’em sent a bull to the cattle-show ; and Ike’s bull 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 


185 


took the prize. That put the cap-sheaf on for Bill. 
He was jest about as much riled as a feller could be ; 
and that evenin’ Delily she danced with Ike twice as 
many times ez she did with him. Wal, Bill he got 
it round among the fellers that the jedges hed been 
partial ; and he said, if them bulls was put together, 
his bull would whip Ike’s all to thunder. Wal, the 
fellers thought ’twould be kind o’ fun to try ’em, and 
they put Ike up to it. And finally ’twas agreed that 
Ike’s bull should be driv over to old Mump’s ; and 
the Monday after the cattle-show, they should let 
’em out into the meadow together and see which 
was the strongest. So there was a Sunday the bulls 
they were both put up together in the same barn ; 
and the ’greement was, they wasn’t to be looked at 
nor touched till the time come to turn ’em out. 

“ Come Sunday mornin’, they got up the wagon to 
go to meetin’ ; and Mis’ Moss and the gals and old 
Mump, they was all ready ; and the old yaller dog he 
was standin’ waitin’ by the wagon, and Bill warn’t 
nowhere to be found. So they sent one o’ the girls 
up chamber to see what’d got him ; and there he was 
a-lyin’ on the bed, and said he’d got a drefful head- 


186 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


ache, and didn’t think he could go to meetin’. Wal, 
the second bell was a- tollin’, and they had to drive 
off without him: they never mistrusted but what 
’twas jest so. Wal, yer see, boys, ’twas that ’are kind 
o’ Sunday headache that sort o’ gets better when the 
folks is all fairly into meetin’. So, when the wagon 
was fairly out o’ sight, Bill he thought he’d jest go 
and have a peek at them bulls. Wal, he looked and 
he peeked, and finally he thought they looked so 
sort o’ innocent ’twouldn’t do no harm to jest let ’em 
have a little run in the cow-yard aforehand. He 
kind o’ wanted to see how they was likely to cut up. 
Now, ye see, the mischief about bulls is, that a body 
never knows what they’s goin’ to do, ’cause whatever 
notion takes ’em allers comes into their heads so 
kind o’ sudd<n., and it’s jest a word and a blow with 
’em. Wal, fust he let out his bull, and then be 
went in and let out Ike’s. Wal, the very fust thing 
that critter did he run up to Bill’s bull, full tilt, and 
jest gin one rip with his horns right in the side of 
him, and knocked him over and killed him. Didn’t 
die right off, but he was done for ; and Bill he gin a 
yell, and run right up and hit him with a stick, and 


























’ 






* 

































































































“ He bethought him of old Mump 's gun .' 1 — Page 187, 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 


187 


the old feller turned right round, and come at him . 
I tell you, Bill he turned and made a straight coat- 
tail, rippin’ and peelin’ it towards the house, and the 
bull tearin’ on right arter him. Into the kitchen he 
went, and he hedn’t no time to shut the door, and 
the bull arter him ; and into the keepin’-room, and 
the bull arter him there. And he hedn’t but jest 
time to git up the chamber-stairs, when he heard the 
old feller roarin’ and tearin’ round there like all na- 
tur. Fust he went to the lookin’-glass, and smashed 
that all to pieces. Then he histed the table over, 
and he rattled and smashed the chairs round, and made 
such a roarin’ and noise, ye’d ha’ thought there was 
seven devils there ; and in the midst of it Bill he 
looked out of the window, and see the wagon 
a-comin’ back ; and 4 Lordy massy ! ’ he thought to 
himself, ‘ the bull ’ll kill every one on ’em,’ and he 
run to the window and yelled and shouted, and they 
saw him, and thought the house must be afire. 
Finally, he bethought him of old Mump’s gun, and 
he run round and got it, and poked it through a 
crack of the chamber-door, and fired off bang ! and 
shot him dead, jest as Mis’ Moss and the girls was 
cornin’ into the kitchen-door. 


188 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ Wal, there was, to be sure, the ’bomination o’ 
desolation when they come in and found every thing j 
all up in a heap and broke to pieces, and the old 
critter a-kickin’ and bleedin’ all over the carpet, and \ 
Bill as pale as his shirt-tail on the chamber-stairs. 
They had an awful mess on’t ; and there was the two 
bulls dead and to be took care uv. 

“‘Wal, Bill,” said his father, “I hope yer satis- 
fied now. All that comes o’ stayin’ to home from 
meetin’, and keepin’ temporal things in yer head all 
day Sunday. You’ve lost your own bull, you’ve got 
Ike’s to pay for, and ye’ll have the laugh on yer all 
round the country.’ 

“ ‘ I expect, father, we ken corn the meat,’ says 
Mis’ Moss, ‘and maybe the hide’ll sell for some- 
thing,’ sez she ; for she felt kind o’ tender for Bill, 
and didn’t want to bear down too hard on him. 

“ Wal, the story got round, and everybody was 
a-throwin’ it up at Bill; and Delily, in partikelar, 
hectored him about it till he wished the bulls had been 
in the Red Sea afore he’d ever seen one on ’em. 
Wal, it really driv him out o’ town, and he went off 
out West to settle, and nobody missed him much ; 


THE BULL-FIGHT. 


189 


and Ike lie married Delily, and they grew from bet- 
ter to better, till now they own jest about as pretty 
a farm as there is round. Yer remember that white 
house with green blinds, that we passed when we 
was goin’ to the trout-brook? Wal, that ’ere’s the 
one.” 



HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL. 


OOK here, boys,” said Sam, “don’t 
you want to go with me up to the 
Devil’s Den this arternoon ? ” 

“ Where is the Devil’s Den,” said I, 
with a little awe. 

“ Wal, it’s a longer tramp than I’ve 
ever took ye. It’s clear up past the 
pickerel pond, and beyond old Skunk John’s pasture- 
lot. It’s a ’mazin’ good place for raspberries ; 
shouldn’t wonder if we should get two three quarts 
there. Great rocks there higher ’n yer head ; kinder 
solemn, ’tis.” 

This was a delightful and seductive account, and 
we arranged for a walk that very afternoon. 

In almost every New-England village the person- 

100 



HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL. 


191 


ality of Satan has been acknowledged by calling by 
his name some particular rock or cave, or other natu- 
ral object whose singularity would seem to suggest a 
more than mortal occupancy. “ The Devil’s Punch- 
bowl,” “ The Devil’s Wash-bowl,” “ The Devil’s Ket- 
tle,” “ The Devil’s Pulpit,” and “ The Devil’s Den,” 
have been designations that marked places or objects 
of some striking natural peculiarity. Often these are 
found in the midst of the most beautiful and romantic 
scenery, and the sinister name seems to have no effect in 
lessening its attractions. To me, the very idea of 
going to the Devil’s Den was full of a pleasing horror. 
When a boy, I always lived in the shadowy edge of that 
line which divides spirit land from mortal life, and it 
was my delight to walk among its half lights and 
shadows. The old graveyard where, side by side, 
mouldered the remains of Indian sachems and the 
ancients of English blood, was my favorite haunt. I 
loved to sit on the graves while the evening mists 
arose from them, and to fancy cloudy forms waving 
and beckoning. To me, this spirit land was my only 
refuge from the dry details of a hard, prosaic life. 
The schoolroom — with its hard seats rudely fashioned 


192 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


from slabs of rough wood, with its clumsy desks, 
hacked and ink-stained, with its unintelligible text- 
books and its unsympathetic teacher — was to me a 
prison out of whose weary windows I watched the 
pomp and glory of nature, — the free birds singing, 
the clouds sailing, the trees waving and whispering, 
— and longed, as earnestly as ever did the Psalmist, 
to flee far away, and wander in the wilderness. 

Hence, no joy of after life — - nothing that the 
world has now to give — can equal that joyous sense 
of freedom and full possession which came over me : 
on Saturday afternoons, when I started off on a tramp 
with the world all before me, — the mighty, unex- 
plored world of mysteries and possibilities, bounded 
only by the horizon. Ignorant alike of all science, 
neither botanist nor naturalist, I was studying at first- 
hand all that lore out of which science is made. 
Every plant and flower had a familiar face to me, 
and said something to my imagination. I knew 
where each was to be found, its time of coming and 
going, and met them year after year as returning 
friends. 

So it was with joyous freedom that we boys ram- 


HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL. 


193 


bled off with Sam this afternoon, intent to find the 
Devil’s Den. It was a ledge of granite rocks rising in 
the midst of a grove of pines and white birches. The 
ground was yellow and slippery with the fallen 
needles of the pines of other days, and the glistening 
white stems of the birches shone through the shadows 
like ivory pillars. Underneath the great granite 
ledges, all sorts of roots and plants grappled and kept 
foothold ; and whole armies of wild raspberries ma- 
tured their fruit, rounder and juicier for growing in 
the shade. 

In one place yawned a great rift, or cavern, as if 
the rocks had been violently twisted and wrenched 
apart, and a mighty bowlder lodging in the rift had 
roofed it over, making a cavern of most seductive 
darkness and depth. This was the Devil’s Den ; and 
after we had picked our pail full of berries, we sat 
down there to rest. 

“ Sam, do j r ou suppose the Devil ever was here ? ” 
said I. “ What do they call this his den for ? ” 

“ Massy, child ! that ’are was in old witch times. 
There used to be witch meetins’ held here, and awful 
doins’ ; they used to have witch sabba’ days and 


194 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


witch sacraments, and sell their souls to the old 

boy.” 

“ What should they want to do that for ? ” 

“Wail, sure enough; what was it for? I can’t 
make out that the Devil ever gin ’em any thing, any 
on ’em. They warn’t no richer, nor didn’t get no i 
more ’n this world than the rest ; and they was took 
and hung ; and then ef they went to torment after 
that, they hed a pretty bad bargain on’t, I say.” 

“ Well, people don’t do such things any more, do 
they ? ” said I. 

“ No,” said Sam. “ Since the gret fuss and row-de- 
dow about it, it’s kind o’ died out ; but there’s those, 

I s’pose, that hez dealins’ with the old boy. Folks 
du say that old Ketury was a witch, and that, ef ’t 
ben in old times, she’d a hed her neck stretched ; but 
she lived and died in peace.” 

“ But do you think,” said I, now proposing the 
question that lay nearest my heart, “ that the Devil 
can hurt us ? ” 

“ That depends consid’able on how you take him,” 
said Sam. “Ye see, come to a straight out-an’-out 
fight with him, he’ll git the better on yer.” 


HOW TO FIGHT THE DEYIL. 


195 


“ But,” said I, “ Christian did fight Apollyon, and 
got him down too.” 

I had no more doubt in those days that this was an 
historic fact than I had of the existence of Romulus 
and Remus and the wolf. 

“ Wal, that ’ere warn’t jest like real things : they 
say that ’ere’s an allegory. But I’ll tell ye how old 
Sarah Bunganuck fit the Devil, when he ’peared to 
her. Ye see, old Sarah she was one of the con- 
verted Injuns, and a good old critter she was too ; 
worked hard, and got her livin’ honest. She made 
baskets, and she made brooms, and she used to pick 
young wintergreen and tie it up in bunches, and dig 
sassafras and ginsing to make beer ; and she got her 
a little bit o’ land, right alongside o’ Old Black Hoss 
John’s white-birch wood-lot. 

“ Now, I’ve heerd some o’ these ’ere modern min- 
isters that come down from Cambridge college, and 
are larnt about every thing in creation, they say 
there ain’t no devil, and the reason on’t is, ’cause 
there can’t be none. These ’ere fellers is so sort o’ 
green! — they don’t mean no harm, but they don’t 
know nothin’ about nobody that does. If they’d ha’ 


196 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


known old Black Hoss John, they’d ha’ been putty 
sure there was a devil. He was jest the crossest, 
ugliest critter that ever ye see, and he was ugly 
jest for the sake o’ ugliness. He couldn’t bear 
to let the boys pick huckleberries in his paster lots, 
when he didn’t pick ’em himself ; and he was allers 
jawin’ me ’cause I would go trout-fishin’ in one o’ 
his pasters. Jest ez if the trout that swims warn’t 
the Lord’s, and jest ez much mine as his. He grudged 
every critter every thing ; and if he’d lia’ hed his 
will and way, every bird would ha’ fell down dead 
that picked up a worm on his grounds. He was jest 
as nippin’ as a black frost. Old Black Hoss didn’t 
git (h’unk in a regerlar way, like Uncle Eph and 
Toddy Whitney, and the rest o’ them boys. But he 
jest sot at home, a-soakin’ on cider, till he was 
crosser’n a bear with a sore head. Old Black Hoss 
hed a special spite agin old Sarah. He said she 
was an old witch and an old thief, and that she stole 
things offn his grounds, when everybody knew that 
she was a regerlar church-member, and as decent an 
old critter as there was goin’. As to her stealin’, 
she didn’t do nothin’ but pick huckleberries and 


HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL. 


197 


grapes, and git chesnuts and wannuts, and butter- 
nuts, and them ’ere wild things that’s the Lord’s, 
grow on whose land they will, and is free to all. 
I’ve hearn ’em tell that, over in the old country, the 
poor was kept under so, that they couldn’t shoot a 
bird, nor ketch a fish, nor gather no nuts, nor do 
nothin’ to keep from starvin’, ’cause the quality 
folks they thought they owned every thing, ’way 
down to the middle of the earth and clear up to 
the stars. We never hed no sech doin’s this side of 
the water, thank the Loi*d ! We’ve allers been free to 
have the chesnuts and the wannuts and the grapes 
and the huckleberries and the strawberries, ef we 
could git ’em, and ketch fish when and where we 
was a mind to. Lordy massy ! your grandthur’s old 
Cesar, he used to call the pond his pork-pot. He’d 
jest go down and throw in a line and ketch his din- 
ner. Wal, Old Black Hoss he know’d the law was so, 
and he couldn’t do nothin’ agin her by law ; but he 
sarved her out every mean trick he could think of. 
He used to go and stan’ and lean over her garden- 
gate and jaw at her an hour at a time ; but old 
Sarah she had the Injun in her ; she didn’t run to talk 


198 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


much : slie used to jest keep on with her weedin’ 
and her work, jest’s if he warn’t there, and that made! 
Old Black IIoss madder’n ever ; and he thought he’dl 
try and frighten her off n the ground, by makin’ on 

j 

her believe he was the Devil. So one time, when he’di 
been killin’ a beef critter, they took off the skin 
with the horns and all on ; and Old Black Hoss he says 
to Toddy and Eph and Loker, ‘ You jest come up to- 
night, and see how I’ll frighten old Sarah Bunga- 
nuck.’ 

“ Wal, Toddy and Eph and Loker, they hedn’t no 
better to do, and they thought they’d jest go round ! 
and see. Ye see ’twas a moonlight night, and old 
Sarah — she was an industrious critter — she was 
cuttin’ white-birch brush for brooms in the paster-lot. 
Wal, Old Black Hoss he wrapped the critter’s skin 
round him, with the horns on his head, and come 
and stood by the fence, and begun to roar and make a 
noise. Old Sarah she kept right on with her work, 
cuttin’ her brush and pilin’ on’t up, and jest let him 
roar. Wal, Old Black Hoss felt putty foolish, ’spe- 
cially ez the fellers were waitin’ to see how she took 
it. So he calls out in a grum voice, — 
















HOW TO FIGHT THE DEVIL. 


199 


“ ‘ 'Woman, don’t yer know who I-be ? ” 

“ 4 No,’ says she quite quiet, 4 I don’t know who 
yer be.’ 

44 4 Wal, I’m the Devil,’ sez he. 

“‘Ye be?’ says old Sarah. ‘Poor old critter, 
how I pity ye ! ’ and she never gin him another word, 
but jest bundled up her broom-stuff, and took it on 
her back and walked off, and Old Black Hoss he stood 
there mighty foolish with his skin and horns ; and so 
he had the laugh agin him, ’cause Eph and Loker 
they went and told the story down to the tavern, and 
he felt awful cheap to think old Sarah had got 
the upper hands on him. 

“ Wal, ye see, boys, that ’ere’s jest the way to fight 
the Devil. Jest keep straight on with what ye’re 
doin’, and don’t ye mind him, and he can’t do 
nothin’ to ye.” 


LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’. 


E were in disgrace, we boys ; and the 
reason of it was this : we had laughed 
out in meeting-time ! To be sure, 
the occasion was a trying one, even 
to more disciplined nerves. Parson 
Lothrop had exchanged pulpits with 
Parson Summeral, of North Wearem. 
Now, Parson Summeral was a man in the very outset 
likely to provoke the risibles of unspiritualized juve- 
niles. He was a thin, wiry, frisky little man, in a 
powdered white wig, black tights, and silk stockings, 
with bright knee-buckles and shoe-buckles; with 
round, dark, snapping eyes ; and a curious, high, 
cracked, squeaking voice, the very first tones of which 
made all the children stare and giggle. The news 



200 


LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’. 


201 


that Parson Summeral was going to preach in our 
village spread abroad among us as a prelude to some- 
thing funny. It had a flavor like the charm of circus- 
acting ; and, on the Sunday morning of our story, we 
went to the house of God in a very hilarious state, 
all ready to set off in a laugh on the slightest provo- 
cation. 

The occasion was not long wanting. Parson Lo- 
throp had a favorite dog yclept Trip, whose behavior 
in meeting was notoriously far from that edifying 
pattern which befits a minister’s dog on Sundays. 
Trip was a nervous dog, and a dog that never could 
be taught to conceal his emotions or to respect con- 
ventionalities. If any thing about the performance 
in the singers’ seat did not please him, he was apt to 
express himself in a lugubrious howl. If the sermon 
was longer than suited him, he would gape with such 
a loud creak of his jaws as would arouse everybody’s 
attention. If the flies disturbed his afternoon’s nap, 
he would give sudden snarls or snaps ; or, if any- 
thing troubled his dreams, he would bark out in his 
sleep in a manner not only to dispel his own slumbers, 
but those of certain worthy deacons and old ladies, 


202 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


whose sanctuary repose was thereby sorely broken| 
and troubled. For all these reasons, Madame Lo-I 
throp had been forced, as a general thing, to denyj 
Trip the usual sanctuary privileges of good family 
dogs in that age, and shut him up on Sundays to pri- 
vate meditation. Trip, of course, was only the more 
set on attendance, and would hide behind doors, 
jump out of windows, sneak through by-ways and 
alleys, and lie hid till the second bell had done toll- 
ing, when suddenly he would appear in the broad 
aisle, innocent and happy, and take his seat as com- 
posedly as any member of the congregation. 

Imagine us youngsters on the qui vive with excite- 
ment at seeing Parson Summeral frisk up into the 
pulpit with all the vivacity of a black grasshopper. ! 
We looked at each other, and giggled very cautiously, j 
with due respect to Aunt Lois’s sharp observation. 

At first, there was only a mild, quiet simmering of 
giggle, compressed decorously within the bounds of 
propriety ; and we pursed our muscles up with strin- 
gent resolution, whenever we caught the apprehen- 
sive eye of our elders. 

But when, directly after the closing notes of the 


LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’. 


203 


tolling second bell, Master Trip walked gravely up 
the front aisle, and, seating himself squarely in front 
of the pulpit, raised his nose with a critical air to- 
ward the scene of the forthcoming performance, it 
was too much for us : the repression was almost con- 
vulsive. Trip wore an alert, attentive air, befitting 
a sound, orthodox dog, who smells a possible heresy, 
and deems it his duty to watch the performances 
narrowly. 

Evidently he felt called upon to see who and what 
were to occupy that pulpit in his master’s absence. 

Up rose Parson Summeral ; and up went Trip’s 
nose, vibrating with intense attention. 

The parson began in his high-cracked voice to in- 
tone the hymn, — 

“ Sing to the Lord aloud,” 

when Trip broke into a dismal howl. 

The parson went on to give directions to the dea- 
con, in the same voice in which he had been reading, 
so that the whole effect of the performance was some- 
what as follows : — 


‘ Sing to the Lord aloud.’ 


204 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


“ (Please to turn out that dog), — 




“ ‘ And make a joyful noise.’ ” 


The dog was turned out, and the choir did their : 
best to make a joyful noise ; but we boys were upset 
for the day, delivered over to the temptations of I 
Satan, and plunged in waves and billows of hysteri- 
cal giggle, from which neither winks nor frowns from 
Aunt Lois, nor the awful fear of the tithing-man, 
nor the comforting bits of fennel and orange-peel 
passed us by grandmother, could recover us. 

Everybody felt, to be sure, that here was a trial 
that called for some indulgence. Hard faces, even 
among the stoniest saints, betrayed a transient quiver 
of the risible muscles ; old ladies put up their fans ; 
youths and maidens in the singers’ seat laughed out- 
right ; and, for the moment, a general snicker among 
** the children was pardoned. But I was one of that 
luckless kind, whose nerves, once set in vibration, 
could not be composed. When the reign of gravity 
and decorum had returned, Harry and I sat by each 
other, shaking with suppressed laughter. Every 
thing in the subsequent exercises took a funny turn ; 


LAUGHIN' IN MEETIN’. 


205 


and in the long prayer, when everybody else was still 
and dacorous, the whole scene came over me with 
such overpowering force, that I exploded with laugh- 
ter, and had to be taken out of meeting and marched 
home by Aunt Lois, as a convicted criminal. What 
especially moved her indignation was, that, the more 
she rebuked and upbraided, the more I laughed, till 
the tears rolled down my cheeks ; which Aunt Lois 
construed into wilful disrespect to her authority, and 
resented accordingly. 

By Sunday evening, as we gathered around the 
fire, the re-action from undue gayety to sobriety had 
taken place ; and we were in a pensive and penitent 
state. Grandmother was gracious and forgiving ; but 
Aunt Lois still preserved that frosty air of reproba- 
tion which she held to be a salutary means of quick- 
ening our consciences for the future. It was, there- 
fore, with unusual delight that we saw our old friend 
Sam come in, and sit himself quietly down on the 
block in the chimney corner. With Sam we felt as- 
sured of indulgence and patronage ; for, though al- 
ways rigidly moral and instructive in his turn of mind, 
*he had that fellow-feeling for transgressors which is 


18 


206 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


characteristic of the loose-jointed, easy-going style of j 
his individuality. 

“Lordy massy, boys — yis,” said Sam virtuously, 
in view of some of Aunt Lois’s thrusts, “ye ought 
never to laugh nor cut up in meetin’ ; that ’are’s so : 
but then there is times when the best on us gets took 
down. We gets took unawares, ye see, — even min- 
isters does. Yis, natur’ will git the upper hand afore 
they know it.” 

“ Why, Sam, ministers don’t ever laugh in meetin’ ! 
do they ? ” 

We put the question with wide eyes. Such a sup- 
position bordered on profanity, we thought : it was 
approaching the sin of Uzzah, who unwarily touched 
the ark of the Lord. 

“ Laws, yes. Why, heven’t you never heard how 
there was a council held to try Parson Morrel for 
laughin’ out in prayer-time ? ” 

“ Laughing in prayer-time ! ” we both repeated, 
with uplifted hands and eyes. 

My grandfather’s mild face became luminous with 
a suppressed smile, which brightened it as the moon 
does a cloud ; but he said nothing. 


LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’. 


207 


“Yes, yes,” said my grandmother, “ that affair did 
make a dreadful scandal in the time on’t ! But Par- 
son Morrel was a good man ; and I’m glad the coun- 
cil wasn’t hard on him.” 

“ Wal,” said Sam Lawson, “ after all, it was more 
Ike Babbit’s fault than ’twas anybody’s. Ye see, Ike 
he was allers for gettin’ what he could out o’ the 
town ; and he would feed his sheep on the meetin’- 
house green. Somehow or other, Ike’s fences allers 
contrived to give out, come Sunday, and up would 
come his sheep ; and Ike was too pious to drive ’em 
back Sunday, and so there they was. He was talked 
to enough about it : ’cause, ye see, to hev sheep and 
lambs a ba-a-in’ and a blatin’ all prayer and sermon 
time wa’n’t the thing. ’Member that ’are old meet- 
in’-house up to the North End, down under Blueberry 
Hill, the land sort o’ sloped down, so as a body hed 
to come into the meetin’-house steppin’ down instead 
o’ up. 

“ Fact was, they said ’twas put there ’cause the 
land wa’n’t good for nothin’ else ; and the folks 
thought puttin’ a meetin’-house on’t would be a clear 
savin’. But Parson Morrel he didn’t like it, and 


208 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


was free to tell ’em his mind on’t, — that ’twas like 
bringin’ the lame and the blind to the Lord’s sarvice ; 
but there ’twas. 

“ There wa’n’t a better minister, nor no one more 
set by in all the State, than Parson Morrel. His doc- 
trines was right up and down, good and sharp ; and 
he give saints and sinners their meat in due season ; 
and for consolin’ and comfortin’ widders and orphans, 
Parson Morrel hedn’t his match. The women sot 
lots by him ; and he was alius’ ready to take tea round, 
and make things pleasant and comfortable ; and he 
hed a good story for every one, and a word for the 
children, and maybe an apple or a cookey in his 
pocket for ’em. Wal, you know there an’t no pleas- 
in’ everybody ; and ef Gabriel himself, right down out 
o’ heaven, was to come and be a minister, I expect 
there’d be a pickin’ at his wings, and sort o’fault- 
findin’. Now, Aunt Jerushy Scran and Aunt Polly 
Hokun they sed Parson Morrel wa’n’t solemn 
enough. Ye see, there’s them that thinks that a min- 
ister ought to be jest like the town hearse, so that ye 
think of death, judgment, and eternity, and nothin’ 
else, when ye see him round ; and ef they see a man 


laughin’ in MEETIN’. 


209 


rosy and chipper, and hevin’ a pretty nice, sociable 
sort of a time, why they say he an’t spiritooal minded. 
But, in my times, I’ve seen ministers the most 
awakenin’ kind in the pulpit that was the liveliest 
when they was out on’t. There is a time to laugh, 
Scrip tur’ says ; tho’ some folks never seem to re- 
member that ’are.” 

“ But, Sam, how came you to say it was Ike Bab- 
bit’s fault ? What was it about the sheep ? ” 

“ Oh, wal, yis ! I’m a cornin’ to that ’are. It was 
all about them sheep. I expect they was the instru- 
ment the Devil sot to work to tempt Parson Morrel 
to laugh in prayer-time. 

“ Ye see, there was old Dick, Ike’s bell-wether, was 
the fightin’est old crittur that ever yer see. Why, 
Dick would butt at his own shadder ; and everybody 
said it was a shame the old crittur should be left to 
run loose, ’cause he run at the children, and scared 
the women half out their wits. Wal, I used to live 
out in that parish in them days. And Lem Sudoc and 
I used to go out sparkin’ Sunday nights, to see the 
Larkin gals ; and we had to go right ’cross the lot 
where Dick was : so we used to go and stand at the 


18 * 


210 OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 

fence, and call. And Dick would see us, and put 
down his head, and run at us full chisel, and come bunt 
agin the fence ; and then I’d ketch him by the horns, 
and hold him while Lem run and got over the fence 
t’other side the lot ; and then I’d let go : and Lem 
would holler, and shake a stick at him, and away he’d 
go full butt at Lem ; and Lem would ketch his horns, 
and hold him till I came over, — that was the way we 
managed Dick ; but, I tell you, ef he come sudden 
up behind a fellow, he’d give him a butt in the small 
of his back that would make him run on all fours one j 
while. He was a great rogue, — Dick was. W al, that 
summer, I remember they hed old Deacon Titkins for 
tithing-man ; and I tell you he give it to the boys 
lively. There wa’n’t no sleepin’ nor no playin’ ; for 
the deacon hed eyes like a gimblet, and he was quick 
as a cat, and the youngsters hed to look out for them- 
selves. It did really seem as if the deacon was like 
them four beasts in the Revelations that was full o’ 
eyes behind and before ; for which ever way he was 
standin’, if you gave only a wink, he was down on 
you, and hit ycu a tap with his stick. I know once 
Lem Sudoc jist wrote two words in the psalm-book 


LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’. 


211 


and passed to Kesiah Larkin ; and the deacon give 
him such a tap that Lem grew red as a beet, and 
vowed he’d be up with him some day for that. 

“Well, Lordy Massy, folks that is so chipper and 
high steppin’ has to hev their come downs ; and the 
deacon he bed to hev his. 

“ That ’are Sunday, — I ’member it now jest as well 
as if ’twas yesterday, — the parson he give us his gre’t 
sermon, reconcilin’ decrees and free agency : everybody 
said that ’are sermon was a masterpiece. He preached 
it up to Cambridge at Commencement, that year. 
Wal, it so happened it was one o’ them bilin’ hot days 
that come in August, when you can fairly hear the 
huckleberries a sizzlin’ and cookin’ on the bushes, 
and the locust keeps a gratin’ like a red-hot saw. 
Wal, such times, decrees or no decrees, the best on 
us will get sleepy. The old meetin’-house stood 
right down at the foot of a hill that kep’ off all the 
wind ; and the sun blazed away at them gre’t west 
winders: and there was pretty sleepy times there. 
Wal, the deacon he flew round a spell, and woke up 
the children, and tapped the boys on the head, and 
kep’ every thing straight as he could, till the sermon 


212 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


was most through, when he railly got most tuckered 
out ; and he took a chair, and he sot down in the door 
right opposite the minister, and fairly got asleep him- | 
self, jest as the minister got up to make the last 
prayer. 

“ Wal, Parson Morrel hed a way o’ prayin’ with 
his eyes open. Folks said it wa’n’t the best way : but 
it was Parson Morrel’s way, anyhow ; and so, as he 
was prayin’, he couldn’t help seein’ that Deacon Tit- 
kins was a noddin’ and a bobbin’ out toward the 
place where old Dick was feedin’ with the sheep, 
front o’ the meetin’-house door. 

“ Lem and me we was sittin’ where we could look 
out ; and we jest sees old Dick stop feedin’ and look 
at the deacon. The deacon hed a little round head 
as smooth as an apple, with a nice powdered wig on 
it : and he sot there makin’ bobs and bows ; and Dick 
begun to think it was suthin sort o’ pussonal. Lem 
and me was sittin’ jest where we could look out and 
see the hull picter ; and Lem was fit to split. 

“ ‘ Good, now,’ says he : ‘ that crittur’ll pay the 
deacon off lively, pretty soon.’ 

“ The deacon bobbed his head a spell t and old Dick 














“ And knocked him head over heels into the broad aisle." 






LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN'. 


213 


he shook his horns, and stamped at him sort o’ threat- 
nin’. Finally the deacon he give a great bow, and 
brought his head right down at him ; and old Dick he 
sot out full tilt and come down on him ker chunk, 
and knocked him head over heels into the broad aisle : 
and his wig flew one way and he t’other ; and Dick 
made a lunge at it, as it flew, and carried it off on his 
horns. 

“ Wal, you may believe, that broke up the meetin’ 
for one while : for Parson Morrel laughed out ; and 
all the gals and boys they stomped and roared. And 
the old deacon he got up and begun rubbin’ his shins, 
’cause he didn’t see the joke on’t. 

“‘You don’t orter laugh,’ says he : ‘ it’s no laugh- 
in’ matter ; it’s a solemn thing,’ says he. ‘ I might 
hev been sent into ’tarnity by that darned crittur,’ 
says he. Then they all roared and haw-hawed the 
more, to see the deacon dancin’ round with his little 
shiny head, so smooth a fly would trip up on’t. 4 1 
believe, my soul, you’d laugh to see me in my grave,’ 
says he. 

44 Wal, the truth on’t was, ’twas jist one of them 
bustin’ up times that natur has, when there an’t 


214 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


nothin’ for it but to give in : ’twas jest like the ice 
breakin’ up in the Charles River, — it all come at 
once, and no whoa to ’t. Sunday or no Sunday, sin 
or no sin, the most on ’em laughed till they cried, and 
couldn’t help it. 

“ But the deacon, he went home feelin’ pretty sore 
about it. Lem Sudoc, he picked up his wig, and 
handed it to him. Says he, ‘ Old Dick was playin’ 
tithin’-man, wa’n’t he, deacon? Teach you to make 
allowance for other folks that get sleepy.’ 

“ Then Miss Titkins she went over to Aunt 
Jerushy Scran’s and Aunt Polly Hokum’s ; and they 
hed a pot o’ tea over it, and ’greed it was awful of 
Parson Morrel to set sich an example, and suthin’ 
hed got to be done about it. Miss Hokum said she 
allers knew that Parson Morrel hedn’t no spiritooali- 
ty ; and now it hed broke out into open sin, and led 
all the rest of ’em into it ; and Miss Titkins, she said 
such a man wa’n’t fit to preach ; and Miss Hokum 
said she couldn’t never hear him agin : and the next 
Sunday the deacon and his wife they hitched up and 
driv eight miles over to Parson Lothrop’s and took 
Aunt Polly on the back seat. 


LAUGHIN’ IN MEETIN’. 


215 


“ Wal, the thing growed and growed, till it seemed 
as if there wa’n’t nothin’ else talked about, ’cause 
Aunt Polly and Miss Titkins and Jerushy Scran they 
didn’t do nothin’ but talk about it; and that sot 
everybody else a-talkin’. 

“ Finalty, it was ’greed they must hev a council to 
settle the hash. So all the wimmen they went to 
choppin’ mince, and makin’ up pumpkin pies and 
cranberry tarts, andb’ilin’ doughnuts, — gettin’ ready 
for the ministers and delegates ; ’cause councils al- 
ways eats powerful : and they hed quite a stir, like 
a gineral trainin’. The hosses they was hitched all 
up and down the stalls, a-stompin’ and switchin’ their 
tails ; and all the wimmen was a-talkin’ ; and they hed 
up everybody round for witnesses. And finally Parson 
Morrel he says, ‘ Brethren,’ says he, ‘ jest let me 
tell you the story jest as it happened ; and, if you don’t 
every one of you laugh as hard as I did, why, then, 
I’ll give up.’ 

“ The parson he was a master-hand at settin’ off a 
story ; and, afore he’d done, he got ’em all in sich a 
roar they didn’t know where to leave off. Finally, 
they give sentence that there hedn’t no temptation 


216 


OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES. 


took him but such as is common to man ; but they 
advised him afterwards alters to pray with his eyes 
shet ; and the parson he confessed he orter ’a done it, 
and meant to do better in future : and so they settled 
it. 

“ So, boys,” said Sam, who always drew a moral, 
“ ye see, it larns you, you must take care what ye look 
at, ef ye want to keep from laughin’ in meetin’.” 





FIRESIDE STORIES 


< BOSTON : 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY. 
1872. 










































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